


First Impressions

by boleynqueens



Category: 16th Century CE RPF, Pride and Prejudice (1995), Pride and Prejudice (2005), Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Gen, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 13:03:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7802923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boleynqueens/pseuds/boleynqueens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is a truth universally acknowledged that college boys are assholes; and assholes at parties especially."</p><p>Set at Eltham University.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. pride

**Author's Note:**

  * For [briony_larkin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/briony_larkin/gifts).



> moodboard for the story here: http://boleynqueens.tumblr.com/post/149122473827/anna-thanks-god-at-the-moment-that-shes-not
> 
> Credit to briony-larkin for inspiration from the comment that said I wrote Henry/Anne in the fic 'chivalry' with Elizabeth/Darcy vibes: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6975145
> 
> As this is a crossover of sorts, I wasn't completely certain if it was meant for the P & P tag...however, given that it follows the bare bones outline of the novel, I felt it only best to give credit where was credit was due. Suffice it to say, here's the disclaimer: if you're not a fan of crossovers this is probably not the story for you.
> 
> Otherwise, let's begin~
> 
> Character Map/Guide (their names in the fic and what characters they're based on):
> 
> Anna Bennett = Anne Boleyn + Elizabeth Bennet
> 
> Henry Durot = Henry Tudor (VIII) + Mr. Darcy
> 
> Mia Bennett = Mary Boleyn + Jane Bennet
> 
> Charles Brandon = Charles Brandon + Mr. Bingley
> 
> Charlotte Lucas = Charlotte Lucas
> 
> Margaret Durot = Margaret Tudor 
> 
> Marianna Rose Durot = Mary Tudor + Georgiana Darcy
> 
> "... the King's riding through the streets of London with Anna Bullen...It is however but Justice, & my Duty to declare that this amiable Woman was entirely innocent of the Crimes with which she was accused, of which her Beauty, her Elegance, & her Sprightliness were sufficient proofs, not to mention her solemn protestations of Innocence, the weakness of the Charges against her, & the King's Character, all of which add some confirmation, tho' perhaps but slight ones when in comparison with those before alledged in her favour." -- Jane Austen's History of England

** September **

It is a truth universally acknowledged that college boys are assholes; and assholes at parties especially.

However, Anna Bennett wasn't really expecting an assholery of _quite_ such a personal nature tonight, so when it comes she is blindsided.

It begins with her older sister, Mia Bennett, halfway between tipsy and drunk, nodding towards _Ruggedly Handsome and Bestie McBroody_ _at 5'oclock_ , and a stage-whispered request to find out if the former is _as fine from behind_. 

Anna wouldn't _usually_ placate such a ludicrous request (and she's going to end up wishing she didn't), but Mia's girlfriend just dumped her and so, Anna figures that humoring her can't _hurt_.

And so it goes:

She moves around the perimeter of the living room, red cup in hand, intent on her quest. Anna murmurs _excuse me's_ as she circles around through the kitchen, then the hallway. The two still stand at the mouth of it.

Anna scopes out the backside of _Ruggedly Handsome_ and leans against the wall as she types out a text to her sister:

> _Backside is 10/10, confirmed…_

* * *

It's Charles Brandon and Henry Durot that have, unbeknownst to them, been gifted with the nicknames _Ruggedly Handsome and Bestie McBroody_ by one Mia Bennett.

"Stop _sulking_ ," Brandon groans, "I've offered to wingman, I don't know why you're standing over here--"

"I'm not 'sulking'," Henry snaps, sliding his watch around his wrist, "I'm…observing. And no one here interests me, so I don’t require 'wingman' services."

"There are _plenty_ of hot girls here. Maybe you need to get your prescription checked," he teases, reaching up to tap the frames of his friend's glasses.

Henry scowls and swats Brandon's hand away.

"Your sisters are taken," Henry says, nodding in the direction of both of them, ensconced with their boyfriends at pool tables set up near the sliding glass doors, "no one else is even worth looking at. And _you've_ already set your sights on the hottest girl here, so…I'm bored."

"What about the _other_ Bennett sister? She's pretty cute."

"The younger one? She's… _okay_. Not especially tempting. Look, I only have like… _one_ free day a month. So I'm not going to bother with anyone less than a 10. It's just, like…not worth it."

* * *

 

> _His friend's a dick, though, Jesus…if you're judging by the company he keeps, the Greek god physicality may not be entirely worth it._

Anna presses 'send' on the message, already imagining retelling this incident to her friends, can practically _hear_ herself imitating his posh voice…

She swallows her hurt and reminds herself of the potential for amusement to be gleaned from the story before heading back to her sister.

* * *

**October **

Okay, so, Anna _hates_ Henry Durot.

Like, if she were in high school and still had the time on her hands, she would be scrawling _"I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate and loathe and detest Henry Durot!!!!"_ in her diary. Like, _for sure_ she would be.

Given his general air of disdain, she guesses the hatred is mutual.

See, if it weren't for Mia's insistence that she go to study group sessions with her (sessions that usually consist of Charles Brandon, Durot, Andrea Hastings, Charlotte Lucas, Tom Wyatt and various others), Anna would probably have forgotten about the party incident by now. She probably _wouldn't_ hate him, because she wouldn't be _reminded_ of the fact that she does by his presence on such a semi-regular basis.

They meet at the library, then various cafes until they find one everyone likes.

Mia and Brandon call each other by their last names (well, _everyone_ calls him by his, _but_ _whatever_ ): _Bennett and Brandon_ , and the whole thing is _very high school_ , but somehow when _they_ do it sounds _nauseatingly_ cute, like… _gag her with a spoon, honestly._

So they do _that_ while Henry looks impetuously bored and Anna feels like a piece of furniture. When that feeling gets too much, she socializes with everyone else besides 'McBroody' (which Mia slips up and calls him _to his face_ , once, which caused _Anna_ to choke on her croissant in her laughter…she literally had to get up and leave the table, so she missed _his_ reaction to the slip), which seems to suit _him_ just fine: besides Brandon, Henry doesn't really seem to socialize with anyone. 

* * *

The study group blows off steam at a hole-in-the-wall kind of bar (they don't even ban cigarettes, and no one is carded) one night, and Mia and Charlotte push Anna towards the open mic. 

Anna ends up playing the dusty piano onstage and singing [_La Vie En Rose_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ba_WoSZXvw)despite her protests to any sort of performance: she's only a moderately decent musician, she knows, and doesn’t like showcasing any skills that are not near perfection.

Henry glances at her as she sings on the stage, waving smoke away from dark blue eyes as he does. A small smile plays on his lips.

> _(Anna doesn't notice this, of course, but Brandon does.)_

As the music veers off open mic and goes to a Top 40 station, the patrons start to dance in earnest (Anna has a hunch that this  _probably_ _something to do with the alcohol kicking in)._

Brandon and Mia dance together. Henry stands, hands in pockets, at the receiving end of a conversation he's not terribly attentive to.

Anna's on her way from the table to the bar when she feels a hand on her elbow. It yanks her, accompanied with Brandon's signature boisterous laugh, spins her until she's toe to toe with Henry.

" _Dance_ , losers!"

Mia giggles in response to the command, laughs louder as Brandon spins her in a circle.

Anna has her arms held over her chest, vertically, hands folded as closed flowers.

"I didn't come over here to dance, Brandon," she insists, taking a step back.

"But you _should_!"

"I'll dance with you," Henry assures, the offer coupled with an _infuriatingly_ elegant shrug.

"Don't do me any favors," Anna responds, coolly, "wouldn't want you to waste your time with _'less than a ten'_ , would we?"

Satisfied by his response (the drop of his gaze coupled with the sharp inhalation informs her of his surprise), she walks away and towards what was (and still is) her intended target: the bar.

* * *

"We have the original copies of these, you know."

The words come to Anna muffled through a world of pop lyrics; she pulls her earbuds out and glances up from her notebook to the questioner.

"What?" she asks, groggily, pushing the plastic lid of her latte against dry lips.

" _Pardon_."

She's going to need a few more gulps of caffeine to tolerate the _abhorrent_ sweater vest Henry's wearing at the moment. It has…a Peter Pan collar poking out over it, _for God's sake_.

(Or… _it's not **so** terrible, maybe_. It's a forest green that's fitted against wide shoulders; the color brings out the flecks of green in his eyes. He has heterochromia, _apparently_ …Henry told her so on one of the rare occasions she attempted politeness and small talk by pointing it out. 

 _It's pretty_ , she said _._

 _It's not 'pretty'_ , he scoffed, _it's a **genetic mutation**_.

 _Well…excuse her for living._ )

So she drinks, steadily, squinting at him over the cup as she does.

"Pardon what?"

"You don't say 'what', that's rude," he remarks, raking a hand through reddish hair.

"You have an _odd_ way of choosing which times one can and can't be rude," Anna quips.

"I…regardless," he says, clearing his throat, "we have the originals. Of the Voltaire. And the _Little Prince._ If you'd like."

"Do you…work here?"

He rolls his eyes, stabs an index at the name tag pinned to the right side of his sweater.

Anna leans towards him to read it. He looks down at her, puzzled at her proximity, at the upward slant of her sloe gaze.

"'Reference librarian,'" she reads, aloud, before leaning back in her chair, "since when?"

"Since always," he scoffs, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he dips his chin in scorn.

He pushes them back up the bridge, before the same hand moves to the left of his cheekbone, cupping his jaw, hesitantly.

"I see. You were born _here_ , then?" 

"I'm _trying_ to be," he says, quietly, dropping his hand from his face to tap at her stack of books, "helpful. And no, of course not."

"You have the first editions of books by _Voltaire_?" she teases, mock astonishment coloring her voice.

Anna leans, elbows against the table, with clasped hands under her chin, in the imitation of open-mouthed awe. She takes pleasure in the sight of him squirming _very_ much.

 _If I'm being mean, he was mean first_. _It's justified_.

" _No_ ," Henry snaps, his mouth an angry line, "no, we don't have the first editions of texts published in the _18th century_ , this isn't _Oxford_ \--"

"Do you want it to be?"

"--and if we _did_ , we _certainly_ wouldn't let people rent them…excuse me?"

"Brandon said you were accepted there."

"Brandon has a big mouth. And I _meant_ originals as in…published in the original language. You're a French major, right?"

"Yes," Anna answers, with genuine surprise.

She's fairly certain she's never told him that.

"So…would you like them, then? The originals?"

His hands are in his pockets, cheeks reddening, the posture of his tall frame rigidly straight. He looks at a point above her, gaze vague and unfocused.

Anna turns in her chair, confused, but sees nothing behind her but the usual: a row of computers and students using them, a few posters on the wall, a bulletin board…turns back around to see his gaze has dropped to the floor.

"Um…sure," she says, still feeling vaguely caught off-guard by the realization of his knowledge of…well, _any of her_ , honestly, "if you have them, that'd be great. Thanks."

"I wouldn't _offer_ them if we didn't have them."

"O _kay_ …"

"I'm not a _book tease_ ," Henry says, with a level of indignation that Anna finds humorous. 

"I didn't say you were," she assures, hands up and palms facing him, a gesture of surrender.

"Well…good."

He returns, moments later, with a stack of the promised copies. Leaves her without a verbal goodbye so much as a symbolic one: a nod of his head accompanied with an expression of nonchalance.  

* * *

  **November**

Anna sits on an empty armchair at _Crave_ café, shucking off her coat before she sits.

"You tracked in mud," Henry says, sans greeting and whilst typing.

He doesn't cease, not even when he elbows Brandon for attempting to key-smash the keyboard of Henry's laptop from the seat cushion next to him.  

"Oh," she says, wincing, checking the soles of her boots before glancing at the trail from the front door to their table, "oops. I walked here, I guess it…collected on the way."

"Walked here from where?" he asks, eyes still on the screen.

"Campus," she says, with a shrug, flipping through a pile of flash cards Mia hands her for 'approval'.

"That's…three miles away," he says, aghast, lifting his hands from the keyboard and leaning back on the couch.

"She likes to walk," Mia says, with a shrug.

"I like to walk," Anna confirms.

"It's 40 degrees and damp. Are you _trying_ to catch a cold?"

" _Yes_ ," she snaps, rolling her eyes.

* * *

After about an hour of a variation of simultaneous but individual studying and talkative partnered studying, one of the baristas tries to hit on Henry in a terribly unsubtle manner. He all but ignores her, glances up from his book only once, mutters various _thank you's_ and _mm-hmm's_ until she leaves.

"What the hell was that?" Anna asks.

"Pardon?" Henry asks, sliding the pen he was using on the book atop an elfish ear.  

"You were _so_ cold."

"I wasn't interested."

"You could've been nicer about it. Do you even _try_ to be sociable?" 

"No," Brandon answers in his stead, earning him a glare and a kick in the shin from Henry, "he doesn't."

"I don't find it easy to…talk to people. That I don't know," Henry elucidates, worrying the lobe of a reddening ear in between his thumb and forefinger, "unlike some, who do."

"So _practice_. Like everyone else. There's no excuse not to, anymore. The _Internet's_ a thing now, if you're unaware," Anna quips.

He gestures to the laptop, set next to a pile of books on the table, in exasperation.

"Do you even have a Facebook?" she asks, checking the status of his answer on her phone.

A 'Margaret Durot' comes up in a search of his last name, but no Henry…

"No…why?"

Anna gasps, putting her phone back into the pocket of her dress.

"You're almost an endangered species! An American college student without a Facebook…wow. You really _don't_ try."

"I'm _private_."

"You can set your profile to private on the settings. You don't try."

* * *

> **From: 323-421-342**
> 
> **To: Anna Bennett**
> 
> **Sent November 5 2016, Saturday, 8:05 PM**
> 
> Henry Durot has sent you a friend request. You have 3 friends in common.
> 
> Reply '1' to confirm.

* * *

> **From: 323-624-41**
> 
> **To: Henry Durot**
> 
> **Sent November 5 2016, Saturday, 9:11 PM**
> 
> Anna Bennett has accepted your friend request. Reply '1' to send her a message or visit her timeline at **link**

* * *

> **From: 326-65**
> 
> **To: Henry Durot**
> 
> **Sent November 5 2016, Sunday, 7:05 PM**
> 
> Henry, you have 10 new notifications and 1 message on Facebook: **link**

* * *

 

**Facebook Chat window**

> **Anna Bennett:** Le Petit Prince is much better in its original, thank you.
> 
> **Henry Durot** : You're welcome.
> 
> **Anna:** The magic realism flows better in French.
> 
> **Henry:** Is that a genre you prefer?
> 
> **Anna:** Yes, very much so. For non-academic, it's usually all I read.
> 
> **Henry:** Oh? What would you recommend?
> 
> **Anna:** Well…Le Petit Prince, of course.
> 
> **Henry:** Thanks, I've read that one, though. About…fifteen times or so.
> 
> **Anna:** Oh. Well, there's the Alchemist, which is sort of similar. Anything by Isabel Allende…Alice Hoffman, of course. Gabriel García Márquez.
> 
> **Henry:** I've read the Alchemist, I liked it. I'll try to check out the others when I have the time. Thank you. 
> 
> **Anna:** You're welcome.

* * *

Anna sits at the table the group has started to claim, although a study session it is not: all she's doing at the moment is listening to gossip exchanged between Mia and Charlotte with occasional contributions.

So ensconced is she that she doesn't even notice Henry's arrival, takes no notice of him at all until he sits down next to her on the couch, hands clasped over his kneecaps, leaning forward.

Charlotte is the first to greet him with a hello, and Mia follows.

He nods in response, so Anna gives him no more than a nod as well.

Then it's an awkward, uneasy silence (none of the girls really want to deal with the celebrity FMK discussion being the object of his scorn, and he's given unsolicited remarks on the banality of it before) for a few beats, until Mia shrugs and continues.

 _Strangely_ , she only looks at and includes Charlotte in her line of inquiry. Charlotte sucks a spot of whipped cream from her mug of hot chocolate off the pad of her finger as she considers the question: _So how about…FMK for Michael Fassbender, Katie McGrath and Beyoncé?_

"Your book is late," he says, finally, leaning back on the couch.

> _That one's so easy Mia, c'mon…_

"Excuse me?"

" _Le Petit Prince_? It's a day late. You should turn it in."

> _Marry Beyoncé…_

"Oh. Okay…I guess I'll renew it, then, or something--"

"Normally you could, but it's on hold. So. You should turn it in. You'll get fined if it's three days late, it's not…we're not," he stammers, tugging on the sleeves of an amber sweater, "a charity, y'know."

> _Kiss Katie McGrath…_

" _Sorry_. I'll get _right_ on that," Anna says, flatly, annoyed now.

> _Fuck Michael Fassbender. Duh._

"No, it's not…it's _fine_ , obviously, I just…thought you should know."

"Alright."

An order is called from the booth, _to-go_ , and he stands up.

"I have to go. So…bye," he says, brow furrowed.

"Later," Anna says.

The tops of his cheekbones are a slightly dusky pink that spreads downwards, but then, _it's warm in here_. The heat is an affect of the amount of people in here, probably, Anna reasons, since her own face is warm to the touch as well.  

Mia and Charlotte wave, then to turn to stare at her once his back is turned.

Anna watches his retreating figure, the way he leans back, head ducked, when groups of people that stand near the counter don't move out of the way. Waits for them to notice before he simply walks around them, takes his order from the counter and slips a bill into the tip jar.

Feeling the burn of their stares from behind, she turns back to them.

" _Someone's_ ," Charlotte sings, "got _a cruu-ush_."

"Who?" Anna asks.

Charlotte squints at her. Mia snorts, covering her hand with her mouth.

"Are you _dumb_?" she asks, tilting her head to the side.

"…no?"

_Rude!_

"Is she dumb?" Charlotte asks, yielding the question to Mia.

"About some things," Mia answers, smirking before she sips hot cider from a pink mug, eyebrows raised.

"Love _you_ , too," Anna scoffs, crossing her arms. 

* * *

A week after the _Librarian Scold at the Café_ , Brandon randomly ices Mia out. Stops responding to her texts, stops liking and commenting on her posts on Instagram and Facebook.

Or, not so much _ices her out_ as it is…well, while _he_ does reply to her texts (days later)…the replies are far more cordial than effervescent in nature.

And they _used_ to be effervescent.

Anna is more shocked than Mia, even. Soothes her, brightly mentions that this as, at least, the season of comfort food.

Mia nods, though still remains glued to her phone, biting her lip.

Anna stays at her sister's dorm to keep her company. She's there, helping Mia wind her hair into curlers for the night, when she gets the text that makes her cry:

> _Sorry, I don't want to give you the wrong idea: I think we should just be friends_.

Turns out she liked him more than Anna ever realized. And the thing is Mia likes him more than _she_ ever realized herself: her tears are of both dismay _and_ shock, in equal measure.

* * *

The Saturday of their Thanksgiving break, a week after _The Text_ , Anna passes a bar on her walk home.

Pauses her stride.

Turns back around.

Brandon stands, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette.

Anna confronts him over the rejection and he slurs his words in response.

"My Uber's coming," he finally says, scuffing the cigarette out on the pavement with the sole of his shoe, "look, can we just--"

" _Why_ did you stop talking to her, I don't get it--"

"Henry said--"

Brandon claps a hand over his mouth.

"Henry?"

He shakes his head.

"Henry said…what?"

" _Shh_ ," he says, finger to his lips, " _nothing_ , I did not…say. That name."

"You _did_. Are you saying…what did he say to you?"

"Nothing!"

"So _he's_ the reason you… _is he_?"

He shrugs, then shakes his head, mouth twisted.

"Blink once for yes and twice for no," Anna demands, holding his head steady with gloved hands.

She can see why her sister's wrecked from the loss of him on a shallow level, this close: his is one of those rare, artful faces. His features are sculpted enough to rival marble. He has the [mouth of a knight in a Waterhouse painting](http://artuk.org/discover/artworks/la-belle-dame-sans-merci-188451), and the prettiest brown eyes she's ever seen, even when clouded with drunkenness. Besides the eye color, he's a dead ringer for [Henry Cavill ](http://boleynqueens.tumblr.com/post/139534694273/hann-solos-edits-of-henry-cavill-7-8)to boot.

Anna thanks God, at the moment, that she's not swept away by handsome faces _or_ charming words. Being that way seems to cause girls nothing but pain; but Anna is only attracted to men that are intellectual _and_ respectful. Good looks are merely a bonus. 

If not, she would've been attracted to Brandon's best friend, probably. Henry's remarkably brilliant and brilliantly attractive in equal measure; he'd be even more so if he managed to smile more than once a week. His unfortunate personality and stand-offish manner grounds her against any such misfortune. 

Brandon mutters a _thank God_ when his car pulls up, all but yanking the front door open.

 _He blinked once_.

* * *

Two days later, on a Monday afternoon, Anna stands in front of the café on the same block as her apartment complex.

She stands under the green and white awning outside, watches the rain drip from it onto the sidewalk, collecting in puddles. Watches the sheets of it that fall from the stone grey sky to the road, listens the soothing sound of it as she drinks her coffee.

Her hair is still wet, slick against her collarbones-- the wait in line inside hadn't been long enough to dry it; she's still soaked from her walk around the neighborhood.

A gold Volvo pulls up in front of her, the driver's side window rolls down and:

"Do you need a ride?"

The question is yelled, over the sound of the rain, by Henry Durot.

"No," she shouts, "I live--"

"I can't hear you-- wait!"

The window rolls up and he kills the ignition, parks the car and opens the door.

He comes running out, bare-headed, his brown hair made darker from the rain, plastered to his forehead by the time he makes it under the awning.

"I live," Anna says, pointing to her complex, "literally right up there. I don't need a ride."

"Oh," Henry says, slightly out of breath, "okay. I thought maybe you were walking, so…I thought I’d stop. Since it's raining."

He glances at the storefront window, the display of bakery items, before looking back to her.

"Wait," he says, wrinkling his nose, "you never suggested this place. When the group was…looking for a spot. It would've been more convenient for you--"

"Mia's ex works here. So I didn't," she explains, tossing her paper cup in the trash bin behind her.

"Oh. Well that was…very kind of you."

Henry looks down to rub his glasses, speckled with rain, on the fabric of his shirt.

The coolness of her anger eclipses any warmth or surprise she may have otherwise felt at the compliment (it may be the first she's heard from him, to her).

"I treat my sister kindly, of course," Anna says, "I only wish I could say the same for everyone else."  

"Of course. I understand. I have sisters myself, actually," he says, squinting at his frames before putting them back on, "but…anyways. I was wondering if I could…speak with you, a moment."  

Anna shrugs.

"I don't know if you know this," Henry starts, earnestly, pushing damp bangs away from the bridge of his nose, "but I…I _really_ like you. I'd like to go on a date with you and, I don't know…see where it goes?"

She feels color rise to her face. Suddenly, the wetness of her black hair is a _welcome_ coolness against her cheeks, rather than an uncomfortable one.

_What?_

"Are you going to make me say it again," he asks, laughing, (she realizes, by his response, that her response was vocal as well as visceral…truly, she had thought it was only the latter), pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, "Christ, I…I really like you, um...the thing with your sister, it wasn't personal, or anything, I didn't want you to think--"

"Wasn't…' _personal_ '?"

" _No_ ," he insists, drawing backwards from her, visibly startled by the heated intensity of her answer, "no, not at _all_ …look, it's not like I even gave Brandon unsolicited advice or anything. He asked for my opinion and I gave it, and I gave it honestly. That's what I do."

"How _big_ of you."

"What are you--"

"You think honesty excuses cruelty, I suppose. Very _edgy_ of you."

"' _Cruelty_ '?" Henry asks, incredulously, "I _hardly_ think--"

"What did you tell him? That she's not good enough for him, or some such bull--"

"No! Of course not, I just--"

"Because she's not rich, maybe? Like him? Or you?"

"I don't care about-- _no_! Why would you think--"

"People call you 'prince', at Eltham. Behind your back, did you know? And they _don't_ mean it kindly. I have to suppose that comes from somewhere. You certainly _seem_ to think you're better than everyone, but maybe your friend doesn't feel the same way! He didn't _seem_ to!"

"She doesn't _like him_!" Henry shouts, then groans, into his hands, "oh my _God_ , this is _so_ stupid--"

"What, did she tell you that?" Anna asks, skeptically, arms crossed.

"More or less!"

"Well, was it _more_ or was it _less_ \--"

"I asked her what she thought of him and she said 'he's alright, I guess.' Forgive me, but that didn't strike me as a _terribly_ enthusiastic response--"

"She was probably playing it cool! She knew you'd tell him whatever she said, why…why didn't you just ask _me_ , I would've told--"

"Ask _you_? You wouldn't even _look_ at me," he says, laughing, "when was I supposed to ask--"

"And besides, she's _shy_!"

"She doesn’t seem shy--"

"Well, she is when she likes someone!"

"Besides which, there's the _minor_ inconvenience of her being _gay_!"

"What the _fuck_? She's _not_ \--"

"She's only dated _girls_ , so--"

"Yeah, in the past _year_ …she's _bi_ ," Anna says, furiously (she'd make a quip about the rhyme… _shy and bi_ …if she were in a better mood, that is), "maybe if you _listened_ when _other_ people talked you'd actually _know_ that…"

Anna fumbles in the pocket of her coat, pulling out her phone. Presses the Facebook app, searches for Mia's name, swipes to her information page…

"Are you _seriously_ looking at your phone right now? We're having a conversation--"

…and shoves the screen in Henry's face.

"I can't read this, it's practically _on_ my nose--"

"Read the third line," she says, stepping back slightly.

> **Birthday:** January 4, 1994
> 
> **Gender:** Female
> 
> **Interested In:** Men and Women

"Oh," he says, quietly, "I…see."

"This could've been," she says, voice strained as she slips her phone back in her pocket, shaking her head, " _so_ easily avoided, but like I've said _before_...You don't. _Try_. You just…assumed."

"I didn't-- she just didn't seem interested. It wasn't malicious, Anna, I--"

"She's _hurt_. Did you even _think_ of that possibility, or did you just not care? This _hurt_ her. That makes it pretty fucking ' _personal'_ to _me_."  

"I don't have a problem with her, but she's not my best friend. He _is_. I was looking out for _him_. That's what you do."

"Oh," she says, laughing, "well, if that's what you _do_ …you know, it's funny, I met someone who actually warned me about you. A week or so ago. I thought he was exaggerating, maybe, but--"

"Who?" he asks, tugging the lines of his jacket closer together in the middle.

"George Wickham. I said I knew you and he said you were arrogant, which I agreed with, of course, but then he said that you were something of a bully, which I said I didn't really see…he said you didn't like him, but--"

"I _don't_ like him, no," Henry says, eyes shining, a glint to them that might scare her under normal circumstances (but she doesn’t scare easily, especially when she feels righteous in her indignation) the muscle on his jaw moves to a clench, "but that's a _bit_ of an understatement, actually--"  

"You don't like _anyone_. What'd he _do_ ," she gasps, mocking, "turn a book in late?"

His face goes slack, blank. He takes a deep breath before saying:

"You shouldn't talk to him. I promise, he's not a good person--"

" _You_ shouldn't talk to _me_."

It's quiet: she notices this more acutely because the rain has eased during their fight, sprinkles in low, dulcet tones that do not match the volume of theirs.

"Because of…what I said to Brandon?" he asks, voice cracking on the last word.

"Because ignorance isn't an excuse. And how you handled the whole thing…just confirmed what I thought about you from my first impression, anyway."

"And what was that?"

"That you're stand-offish, and that you think you're better than everyone else. Too good for anyone. _'Less than a ten'_ , or otherwise. That you don't care about the feelings of others-- you certainly didn't consider Mia's."

"Or yours," he asks, scornfully, crossing his arms, "hm?"

"Or mine, what?"

"I wounded your pride a few months ago, and you can't let it go, so…that's it, then?"

" _No_ ," Anna scoffs, narrowing her eyes, "you didn't _'wound my pride'_ …you really _do_ think highly of yourself, _God_ …you are making this easier and easier."

"I think it has something to do with it," he insists. 

" _More_ and more sure of my decision. I don't want to date you, and I don't want you to talk to me. And for the record, I am _very_ much used to guys picking Mia over me. In the hypothetical, in the literal…so no, you didn't wound my pride. You didn't even scratch it."

He clears his throat, closes his eyes slowly, as if in pain. Opens them just as slowly, gaze boring into her.

"I respect your decision," he says, levelly, "but…I was serious about Wickham. Please steer clear. For your own good."

"What does that even--"

"Good- _bye_ ," Henry interrupts, harsh tone at odds with his suddenly placid expression, "Anna. I won't bother you anymore."

Anna closes her eyes and then it is only the jangle of car keys and his heavy steps on the pavement, the slam of the car door, the rev of the ignition, tires splashing against water as he drives away…the soft pattering of rain…

She opens her eyes and he's gone, _just like that_. _A magic trick, of sorts_.

He's left her feeling winded. Much like he did at that party in September, although he didn't know it then, and she guesses he doesn't know it now.

> _Or yours?_

The words grate on her as she walks to her apartment. They grate as she unlocks the entrance, and as she walks up the stairs.

The words grate as she makes herself a cup of tea in her kitchen, and even when she lies in bed that night, curled up on her side, those words _just won't leave her alone_ :

> _Or yours?_


	2. vulnerability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Maybe you were so intent on vilifying him for the second part that you didn't hear the first."

**December 1st, 2016, Thursday**

Anna is tousling newly clean hair with a bath towel when she hears someone knocking on the door.

Wearing pajamas, she walks from the bathroom to the front door of her apartment and peers through the peephole.

"Coming!" she yells, unlatching the chain on her door and making quick work of unlocking the door. 

Mia stands in the doorway wearing an _Eltham University_ sweatshirt, flaxen hair tied in a ponytail. Her eyelids are, on this rare occasion, devoid of any makeup. The lack thereof lends a childishness to her features, a doe quality to large eyes of a bright, shining hazel.

"You left your dorm!" Anna cries in delight, enveloping her sister in a tight hug, "See, I _told_ you you'd feel better if you got out and about--"

"I've left my dorm before this," Mia scoffs, wheezing, "Jesus, let a girl _breathe_ \--"

"Only to go to class. You haven't left campus," Anna says, lessening her grip and all but skipping back into her apartment, "not since…well, anyways, you're not wearing sweatpants, either! You _must_ be feeling better."

"I'm wearing _leggings_ ," she says, pulling her slide-on Keds off of her feet and pushing them towards a row of other shoes near the front door, "let's not get crazy, alright?"

"Still," Anna chirps, taking a seat on the couch, "definite improvement. Do you want to watch something? There's a _Gilmore Girls_ marathon on, I put it on like as a background thing, but it's a good comfort show--"

"You can keep it on if you want," Mia interrupts, taking a seat next to her, "but actually I came over because I wanted to give you…something."

Anna swivels, leaning her back against the armrest. She pulls her knees to her chest, her toes almost touching Mia's thigh.

Her brow crinkles at the proffered envelope, its color a buttery yellow. Mia's thumb is pressed over it; the chipped pink nail polish on her thumbnail appears strangely out of place against the decadent paper. Anna opens her palm and Mia hands it over.

"What is this?"  

She flips it over, only to find it blank.

"A letter…it's not from me, though. Henry gave it to me, and asked if I would give to you--"

"I don't want it, then," Anna says flatly, placing it atop the back of the couch.

Mia sighs, pulling herself into her sister's present position and posture, mirroring her. Her back rests on the opposite armrest, her knees pulled up against her chest as well; effectively facing her.

"He _said_ he was going to do his best to 'fix whatever he may have broken'," she says, crossing her arms, "and that the letter was important, but that he knew you wouldn't want to see him in person and that he wanted to respect that. You're not even _curious_ about what it says? _Really_?"

"No," Anna says, playing with a damp strand of hair, "I'm not."

"Why are you so mad at him?" Mia asks, pert nose (she inherited the Howard feature, whereas Anna inherited the Bennett gene from her father's side-- her own nose is longer and more aquiline) wrinkling, head canted.

"Because you're _miserable_ and it's his fault--"

"Look, I know Henry told him I wasn't into him, but it's not like he held a gun to his head. Brandon's an adult; he can make his own decisions. _He's_ the one that chose to send me that text, and nip us in the bud of whatever we…were," she says, waving her hand in a vague gesture.   

Anna bites her lip, glancing at the letter. She rests her elbow against her kneecap, holding her chin in her hand. Wraps her other arm around her legs, because the room is cold (there's a window in the kitchen that never closes all the way, but she never covers it with blinds because she likes the natural light), but also because she feels…slightly defensive.

"I'll stay with you if you want," Mia offers, "I just…I don't know what it says, either, but he seemed genuine. Honestly. I think you should read it."

* * *

And so she agrees to, albeit reluctantly. Mia puts on a kettle and makes them tea, grabs a blanket from the hall closet that she puts over her lap as she watches the _Gilmore Girls_ episode.

So it's the low tones of the rapid-fire dialogue of fictional characters in the background that accompany Anna as she absorbs the contents of the letter. That and sips of her hot drink, green tea sweetened with honey and milk, which she drinks every paragraph or so before returning to the words on the pages.

She reads:

> I promise that under normal circumstances I would respect your wishes in their entirety; make no attempt to communicate with you whatsoever. I promise this will be the last time I do so, and hope you understand that I would not were the circumstances not extraordinary in nature. Nowhere here will you find me yielding the question I asked you again, nor will you find me repeating the feelings I expressed. Your answer and refusal was perfectly clear, and as such I perfectly understand that you do not reciprocate. My intent is not to convince you otherwise.
> 
> I could not explain myself during the conversation, because the person you mentioned who spoke ill of me…I can't speak of him aloud. It's too hard for me, and so instead I speak with this pen.  
> 
> My writing skills are more eloquent that my speaking ones. Except in conversations that are academic, I struggle greatly. It's one of my many shortcomings that you've listed in the past; and so I also hope that you read this despite that and those traits that are so abhorrent to you. Perhaps in this matter, I can urge you to read with the reminder that you yourself said I put honesty above all else, even the consideration of others.
> 
> With that in mind, I also ask you to keep this in mind: I have no reason to be dishonest to you. Nor have I ever been. I admitted my role and encouragement in Brandon's rejection, readily and easily, and with no prompting from you. It would've been in my favor to deny it, or apologize for it, and I did neither.
> 
> According to your account, Wickham warned you about my character, with no specific details. Now that I know you have spent time with him, it is my duty to warn you about his, specific details included.
> 
> I'm aware that he crashes campus parties. I know that the fraternity he was a part of lets him crash at their house, despite the fact that he dropped out of Eltham. I've consulted my lawyer about requesting to ban him from campus (and including my reasons for doing so with this request, of course), but they've informed me that the NDA I signed prohibits me from doing so.  
> 
> Several years ago, Wickham "dated" my sister. I use quotation marks because I don't believe such a term is appropriate for what it was: an adult pursuing a romantic and physical relationship with a minor (which she was, at the time) only deserves the label of 'despicable', but I can think of no other verb.
> 
> During this relationship, he promised marriage, despite her age. He took advantage of her and the vulnerability of her grief (and she was grieving, at the time); used it and other means to manipulate her.
> 
> I blame myself. I wasn't vigilant enough. I should've been more aware, but it's hard to see things happening right under your nose when you exist in a haze of grief yourself (I don't know if you've ever lost someone, but if you have I'm sure you know this to be true). She was friends with his sister, and I knew the family well. I never suspected anything, always granted her permission when she asked if she could sleep over.
> 
> He took pictures of her with his cell phone, and managed to convince her to take some and send them to him herself. Knowing the wealth of the Durot name, he attempted to blackmail our family with their existence. Wickham smugly informed us of how a minor can be charged with child pornography for taking these kind of photos of themselves, threatened us with that as well.
> 
> Luckily, he was stupid: I recorded everything he said, although it was one of the greatest challenges of my life to listen to his speech without knocking his teeth out.
> 
> I wanted to go to court, I wanted him punished to the fullest extent of the law, but…my sister didn't want anyone else to see them, and knew the photos would be used as evidence.
> 
> So we settled out of court: the deletion of all photos, in exchange for the signing of an NDA by us (he had to sign one, too). On his side there was an agreement to mandatory counseling, a large donation to a victims' rights center and mandatory community service.
> 
> I have a restraining order against him, as do the rest of my siblings.
> 
> His parents were ashamed of him and severed him from his trust fund. I assume this is what he's referring to with the 'bully' accusation. In my opinion he deserves much worse.  
> 
> I know you have several friends, students at Eltham. You're well-liked. I believe that if you told them about what he's done, they'd believe you. I beg of you, though, not to include the name to the story. For my sister's sake.
> 
> You don't like me, I know, but…I hope you can put that aside and do this for me anyway: tell anyone that will listen. Warn anyone that will listen; because legally I'm not allowed to. If you're willing; possibly say the story comes from a trusted source. Tell them they can't tell Wickham that they know of it, but to steer clear of him. They don't owe him a reason for doing so; and he can't force them to give him one.   
> 
> I don't want this to happen to anyone else. I don't think I could live with myself if it did.
> 
> And so I end this letter, with nothing further to say or offer except this:
> 
> I wish you well.
> 
> **\-- _Henry Durot_**

* * *

 "This is _crazy_ ," Anna says, pages of the letter splayed out in front of her, "I mean, I knew he was rich, of course…the whole 'prince' thing…but I didn't know he was like, _get blackmailed_ rich--"

"'Orphan prince'," Mia murmurs, her gaze roaming over the last page.

They sit at a round table in the kitchen, facing each other, each with their own mug of tea. The letter and a plate of pop-tarts separate them over the hard surface.

"What?"

"What people call him behind his back at Eltham? Is 'orphan prince'," Mia says, dropping the piece of paper. It floats, like a feather caught on the draft from the window, to the table.

_'The vulnerability of her grief'....Well, suddenly **that** makes more sense...._

" _Oh_. So, his parents…?"

"Died? Yes. That's why he inherited everything. Thus…'orphan prince'. Kind of a mean-spirited nickname, really…but then, he doesn't exactly have a lot of friends--"

"I didn't know," Anna says, shaking her head in disbelief, "how haven't I heard about this…you never said anything--"

"You never asked."

"I could've _sworn_ all I heard was the 'prince' thing--"

"Well," Mia says, chin in hand, "maybe you were so intent on vilifying him for the second part that you didn't hear the first."

Mia does this, sometimes: glides by on her bubbly personality, until she reminds you she's more. Until she throws down an apt observation, as astute as any professional, delivered _so_ casually that you could blink and risk missing it.

And not just _any_ observation. Rather, she shares an observation that you never, ever realized. An observation you feel stupid for not recognizing yourself.

Anna feels like an amateur, like she of all people shouldn't be caught off-guard by this. People assume, based on their first impressions of Mia, that she's nothing more than effervescent, loquacious and vivacious. Usually after a month or so of knowing her they're proven wrong.

"I guess it makes sense that you didn't know," she continues, leveling her younger sister with a steady gaze, "you do have, sort of like this…tunnel vision, sometimes."

" _Excuse_ me?"

"I _mean_ ," Mia says, reaching across the table to break off a half a pop-tart, "you didn't even know Henry liked you."

" _So_?" Anna demands, taking the other half.

"Like…everyone else knew."

"Everyone else did _not_ know, that's absurd--"

"Everyone knew," she repeats smugly, nibbling the edge of the pastry.

"Not _everyone_ \--"

"Me, Charlotte, Brandon, the baristas at _Crave_ , and that's just for starters--"

" _Stop_ \--"

"Penguins in Antarctica, probably," Mia says, giggling, "but not you."

Anna glowers, which causes Mia to laugh even more: a glare is far less intimidating when the person giving it has crumbs on the corner of her mouth.

* * *

  **December 3rd, 2016, Saturday**

It's Club Fair day, which means nothing except that there are several card tables set out on the quad. Several clubs, attempting to get new members for the upcoming semester, and one or two booths offering credit cards ( _The Vultures_ , Anna calls them, _a fitting name for those that prey on student loans and use almost equally exorbitant interest rates hidden in fine print_ ).

Anna sits on a bench nearby Mia and her girlfriends, headphones on as she reads her book. They were going to study for finals together, but she ran into them ( _Can I be the one to tell them, this time?_ she whispered, and Anna nodded her assent-- not really in a talking mood, she took a seat, more than willing to let Mia be the one to relay the story) and the rest seems to be history.

She doesn't really mind, though. The cold stings her cheeks, brightening her awake, and she has a deal with herself-- one flashcard per page read:

> [“ _I write_ , she wrote, _that memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously_ …”](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3374404-la-casa-de-los-esp-ritus)

As if by some strange stroke of fate, Wickham appears, emerges from under a booth. His grin is wolfish, and her skin prickles at the thought that she ever thought he was even _slightly_ handsome (she ignored her uneasy feeling around him the first time as a result of the rum punch she had consumed-- still, she berates herself: usually she regards herself as an _excellent_ judge of character).

Anna lifts the hood of her coat, covers her hair with it, and puts the book over her face in an attempt to hide.

The incognito look seems unnecessary (and more precautionary than necessary: Anna has always had a strange talent for passing by unnoticed, anyways, when she wants to-- it's like a flick of a switch, or maybe more like a dimming of her light, a dial down on the volume), as he makes a beeline for Mia and her friends rather than Anna.

She watches the scene unfold, rapt, over the top of the page: he approaches and they ignore him. He continues to try to engage, face reddening in anger. Mia, with a regality her tallness sometimes affords (when she chooses to employ it in such a manner, that is) simpers as she grabs a megaphone from a table nearby ( _I'm just going to borrow this for a sec_ , she says, ignoring the squawk of protest from the club leader):

"FUCK…ALL THE WAY…OFF."

Mia's voice is amplified, the feedback screeches towards the end of the sentence, drawing attention from everyone on the quad and the green. Wickham is almost blasted back by the volume and force of it. He gives a disingenuous laugh (as if he's in on the joke, which clearly no one believes), a nervous and jittery one, an attempt to save face; practically scampers away.

They are the Muses, all nine of them, with glacial glares that rival Medusa's and scorn that matches Diana's: scorn for a man who is unworthy in every sense of the word. 

Anna puts _[House of Spirits](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3374404-la-casa-de-los-esp-ritus)_  back onto her lap, gaze flicking over crowds of people until it settles on a familiar face:

Henry, across the courtyard. Sitting on a bench, like her, although the one _he_ sits on has a bicycle leaning against it. Waiting, it appears, like her, for his _sibling-in-all-but-blood_ , Brandon, who is engaged with a group in conversation. A conversation he's probably in earshot of, but not participating in. 

He gives a rare smile (small and closed-mouth, but rare nevertheless), and dips his head, a gesture of acknowledgement and understanding. A gesture that stuns her when she realizes what else it's of:

 _Obeisance_.

She knows he means it as a _thank you_ , so Anna mirrors the gesture, as if to say: _you're welcome_.

* * *

 

> **From: 323-441-221**
> 
> **To: Mia Bennett**
> 
> **Sent December 4th, 2016, Sunday**
> 
> Charles Brandon has tagged you in a relationship status
> 
> “Charles Brandon is in a Relationship with Mia Bennett”
> 
> Press “1” to like

* * *

**December 5th, 2016, Monday**

Anna is…not in a great mood, but she's planning on fixing that.

Normally she changes into comfortable clothes when she's feeling gloomy (the storm outside reflects her emotions), but she's not walking all the way to her apartment and back to the library to do so. She _could_ ask Mia to borrow some clothes, or for a ride, and normally would, but she and Brandon are in that _new relationship glow_ and she doesn't want to interrupt.

Far be it from _her_ to pop that glittering bubble. Mia's crush on Brandon was a saga of months and it has _finally_ reached a happy tie-off… _a sequel, if you will_. 

So she waits, checking her emails on her phone, for the elevator doors to open.

Anna walks carefully (she's not used to wearing platforms) inside when they do, pressing the security key for the third floor, then button three.

The button seems to be stuck, so she frowns as she stands in front of the row of buttons, the doors still open (although she's out of view of the opening where she is, which _is probably why_ , she reasons later, what happens next happens next).

Henry enters, then stammers an apology… _I'll take the stairs_ , and Anna rolls her eyes before saying:

"I'm not _that_ unreasonable…give me some credit."

And then he's confused as to how Anna knows the code for the third floor (where he's headed, incidentally), because _it's_ _employees only_ ( _oops…_ she knew that, of course, _but still…oops_ ), which sort of forces her into a half-hearted explanation of how one of the librarians _maybe sort of_ has a crush on her and how she might have just asked them for it…politely.

" _Who_?" Henry asks, looking genuinely disturbed (he takes the _Laws of the Library_ very seriously, of course, _why is she not surprised_ ), " _no one's_ allowed to do that, it’s a security measure…"

By the time they get to _that_ point, they're only on the second floor ( _God, why is **this** elevator the world's slowest elevator_ … her legs are sore and she's tired and she didn't feel like walking up the stairs, and she'd have to take it at the second floor anyways because the staircase to the third floor creaks _a lot_ and would draw attention), and _somehow_ the realization has _just_ dawned on her that if Henry's going to the third floor…there goes her _Peaceful Alone Time_ plan. 

 _So what am I even doing here_ , she thinks, and it's as Anna is quickly thinking of things to say before an exit that wouldn’t be insulting ( _'You're right, you caught me, I'll go back downstairs like a Good Patron'_ , or maybe _'Oh my God I forgot my scarf downstairs'_ ) that the lights flicker overhead.

They flicker one…twice…three times, before everything goes dark and stays dark.

Then she hears an eerie groan, a sound similar to an old house settling in at night.

The elevator grinds to a halt.

* * *

Henry lights the flashlight on his phone, illuminating the numbers on the wall. He presses the red emergency button, which causes a sharp ringing of bells.

"They'll send someone soon," he says, loudly, over the ringing, "this happened like…once, before, and they fixed it right away."

Anna pushes against the doors.

_This is not happening this is not happening I can't see anything why do they not have emergency lights… @God what have I done to deserve this…_

Panic blooms in her chest, coating the inside of her throat, creating a copper taste in her mouth. She pounds on the door.

"Maybe we can force it open--"

"We can't, _stop_ , you're just going to hurt yourself if you keep--"

"Shut _up_! Shut the fuck up!" Anna screams, the sound piercing as the bells decrescendo along with it.

She turns with the intent to feel for the railing on the wall. Instead she sways, stumbles in these _stupid shoes_ and lands on his chest, face-first and with little gentleness.

"Sorry," she mutters, lifting her head, peeling herself off of him and wincing, " _ow_. Goddamn."

"It's fine…let's sit down, though, okay? You might feel better."

Vertigo sets in and Henry helps ease her to the floor, sits down next to her once she's settled.

Her back rests against the wall and she feels calm for the moment, calm when he asks if he can see her phone, calmer still as he turns the flashlight app on and flips it over so that it faces the doors. Calmer still when he does the same with his own phone…everything being better lit does soothe her, a little.

"Here," he says, passing over a bottle of water he pulls from his messenger bag, "drink this."

She does, slowly. The cool liquid eases the cottonmouth feeling, soothes her throat. She passes it back to him with a quiet _thank you_.

"Distract me," Anna asks, tilting her head back and closing her eyes, "please?"

"Um…with what--"

" _Christ_ ," she snarls, and _here comes the wooziness again_ , teeth chattering, " _anything_ , please, I don't have the energy to freak out again but I can feel myself starting to _freak out again_ because we have no cell reception and there's a storm outside and the fire department is probably saving a baby or something anyways--"

"Elevator company," Henry corrects, his voice coming out muffled, "it's maintenance that comes--"

"What-the-fuck- _ever_ , _either way_ they're not going to want to drive through a storm to get here--"

"Lift your arms," he says, gruffly.

Unthinkingly she does (there's so much authority in his voice that she just blinks her eyes open, owlishly, at him and the grim line of his mouth and his sweater in his hands and _oh_ ) lift her arms, and he eases the sleeves of his sweater over them. She manages to pull it down the rest of the way.

"I don't want you to go into shock…why are you even dressed like that? You must've been cold even _before_ this happened…"

It's warm, and long enough on her to be a dress, the sleeves go past her hands. She puts the back of her hand against her nose and inhales. It smells of coffee, earthy and sweet pine, laundry detergent…all three ground her enough to be indignant:

"I'll wear whatever I goddamn please, it's really none of your business--"

"No, I mean… _goddamn it_ , Anna. You look nice, of course, I'm just wondering why you wore a skirt that short in December. Is it your laundry day, or--"

"Yeah," she says, kicking off her black suede platforms (they match the mentioned skirt) with a grateful sigh of relief (they were _killing_ her arches), "I usually don't…I had a date. So."

"Oh."

"And it was _really_ bad, and I wish I had just stayed home, so I wanted to go up here because no one's ever up here, and now I am stuck in an elevator so I _really_ wish I had just stayed home…and I don't even know why I dressed up? Or said yes? I don't even like him, I mainly just said yes so that he would stop asking, and I dressed up because well…you're _supposed_ to dress up for a date, even if it's a mediocre one, but I shouldn't have."

"What was so bad about it?"

"He quoted Fight Club within the first fifteen minutes. And after _that_ … he kept making Big Bang Theory jokes."

" _Fuck_ ," Henry says, laughing, his hand over his mouth, the skin around his eyes crinkling.

And _oh my God_ because Anna realizes this is the first time she's heard and seen him (dim lighting or no) laugh, genuinely and at length (there was the quick burst at _when was I supposed to ask you, you wouldn't even look at me_ , but that was sarcastic, and then she remembers _I really like you_ and _oh…what the shit,_ her heart is pounding _in a very real way_ and she can't be sure but...she doesn't think it's beating fast because she's stuck in an elevator, _not this time_ ), there's something very vulnerable about it: his is a pleasant laugh, loud and crackling and warm as a roaring fireplace.

And there's something warming about the knowledge that you've made a person that almost never laughs _…_ laugh anyway. She feels… _special_.  

While she watches him laugh her gaze catches on the curve of his bare bicep (which she's never seen before because he is the _One With the Perpetual Sweaters_ , except right now one of the _Perpetual Sweaters_ is on her instead), and it is _nothing to sneeze at_ , that curve. The way his royal blue tee shirt hugs the planes of his chest, clings to the contours of his torso, is also certainly _nothing to sneeze at_.

"You're…very _fit_ ," Anna says, and she can't help the surprise that colors her voice.  

"I don't," Henry says, wiping tears of laughter away, knuckles brushing under the frames of his glasses, "um… _thank you_?"  

"It's just…I figured you were more of an indoors person."

"No," he scoffs, irritably, pressing the side of his watch (the background lights up, then dims as he releases it), "I'm…I exercise. _Outside_ , when weather permits. I used to play team sports, actually, I just…haven't, in a while."

"Why'd you stop?"

"I guess…I liked playing and practice, but it all got a bit much," Henry says, fingers twined in his dark hair, elbow on his knee.

"What did?"

"I loved sports, I just didn't like…the culture, for lack of a better word."

"The culture?"

"You know, locker room talk…the sexism, the gay-bashing. I couldn't adapt. So. I exercise on an individual basis. Or with Brandon, sometimes."

"You could pick a more individualistic sport. A swim team, track…"

"I _do_ swim," Henry says, with a shrug, "maybe. The other issue is lack of time. But…yeah, I guess I could."

* * *

Two minutes into a _Have You Read This_ game and Anna is about to ask _The Winter's Tale_ but for some reason what she says instead is:

"Why are you closed off?"

" _That's_ a strange book title…"

"No, like…is it because of what you talked about in the letter? Do you not trust people, or--"

"I'm not _'closed off'_ ," he snaps, twisting a silver ring (it's fairly feminine, a rose carved from the metal in the center of it, but she notices he wears it quite often anyways) around his middle finger.

"You don't let people in. That's kind of the definition of--"

"I'm not talking about this."

* * *

 _I'm going to look for another distraction_ , Henry said, unbuttoning [her satchel bag](https://www.etsy.com/listing/112479129/bag-satchel-leather-messenger-bag-mens?ref=market) as Anna took shallow breaths.

He had pulled out her book and said _here_ , started to read from it with the light of his phone at the spot she'd left her bookmark, in dulcet tones.

Anna takes deeper breaths now, and feels more relaxed with every word he reads:

> _["Are people drawn to each other because of the stories they carry inside? At the library I couldn’t help but notice which patrons checked out the same books. They appeared to have nothing in common, but who could tell what a person was truly made of? The unknown, the riddle, the deepest truth. I noticed them all: the ones who’d lost their way, the ones who’d lived their lives in ashes, the ones who had to prove themselves, the ones who, like me, had lost the ability to feel…](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/4030673-the-ice-queen)"_

Then, a miracle happens. The miracle is not even that the lights turn back on, that the whirring begins overhead, that the doors open and the world spills in, harshly bright and loud.

The miracle is that for a moment, Anna forgot she was waiting for rescue.

* * *

She had tried to give him his sweater back, but Henry told her to keep it.

So she tucks it back in [her satchel](https://www.etsy.com/listing/112479129/bag-satchel-leather-messenger-bag-mens?ref=market) like a secret, when Mia gives her a ride home (according to her, her _Sister Spidey-Sense tingled_ when she walked past the library, and she had yanked Brandon inside with her accordingly).

* * *

**December 7th, 2016, Wednesday**

"She _said_ ," Henry recounts, pulling his swim cap off his head, "that I was 'closed off'. Can you _believe_ that shit?"

"Uh," Brandon says, elbows resting back against the edge of the pool, "yeah?"

" _What_?" he snaps, scowling as he tries to push his hair, left in straw-like disarray, flat against his head.

Henry's still slightly out of breath, panting. To his credit, they _did_ both just swim seven laps.

"You _are_ closed off," Brandon says, stifling a yawn.

" _Hey_ ," someone snaps, glowering over both of them as he stands near the perimeter of the pool, "there are _other people_ waiting for free lanes. So, if you're _just about done_ having this heart to heart with your boyfriend, _maybe_ get the fuck out of the pool--"

" _Oooh_ ," Henry drawls, scratching the back of his head, and squinting, "you know, I'm not _quite_ done with him yet, actually-- I need to jerk him off, first."

Brandon snorts, stifles his laughter with a closed fist.

"You're welcome to stay and watch, though," Henry yells over his shoulder to the man's retreating feature, "no? Pity, that."

"How you always manage to avoid getting decked is _beyond_ me," Brandon says, shaking his head in wonder.

"I figure everyone at Eltham knows who I am-- so, _I_ assume that _they_ assume that I'd sue anyone who decked me. Anyways…she also said I 'don't let people in'. Where the hell does she get--"

"You _don't_ let people in," he responds, rolling his eyes, "hence why you're a twenty-three-year-old _virgin_."

Henry flips him off with a smile.

"Stick your middle finger up at me all you want, man…it doesn’t make it any less true."

* * *

"You always find an excuse to end things with your girlfriends," Brandon says, struggling as he tries to tug dry socks over freshly showered feet, "like, even _you_ can't deny _that_."

Henry rummages around the top shelf of his gym locker until his hand closes around a stick of deodorant.

"A deal-breaker's a deal-breaker," Henry replies, "that doesn't mean I'm--"

"Catalina Trasmatara?" Brandon counters, bending over his seat on the bench to tie his shoe.

"Too Catholic."

" _You're_ Catholic," he points out.

" _Too_ …Catholic."

"Whatever. Anika Cleves?"

"Too boring."

"Kenna Howard?"

"Too frivolous."

" _Yeah_ ," Brandon says, laughing as he slams the ajar door of his own locker shut, " _you're_ full of shit."

* * *

"You can't just _say_ something like that," Henry snaps (for what feels, to Brandon, like the twentieth time that day), tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, "and not elaborate."

Despite their showers and Brandon's cracked window on the passenger side, the Volvo still smells faintly of chlorine.

They've been sitting in the drive-thru of McDonald's for what feels like an eternity, so he _might as well pass the time_ :

" _Fine_ … I'll break it down for you. One: Catalina Trasmatara," Brandon says, with a flick of his index, "made a public, five-figure donation to Planned Parenthood a month ago."

"She _did_? Are you sure--"

" _Two_ ," he interrupts, glowering, raising his middle finger to join the index, "not _only_ has Anika Cleves become a licensed professional scuba diving instructor, but her band--"

"She has a _band_?"

"Are you fucking-- _listen_!" Brandon exclaims, snapping his fingers, "Her band just opened for the _Chainsmokers_. And three," he continues, raising his ring finger, "Kenna Howard's 'frivolous' line of fashion and jewelry has made her something like…the twentieth bestseller on Etsy. And someone just bought rights to her designs for…fuck, I don't remember the specifics. Something around a million? But she donated a fair amount of it to charity."

"How do you _know_ all this shit?"

"I _pay attention_. Are you missing the point, because I _feel_ like--"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Henry grouses, adjusting the rearview mirror, "I'm full of shit. Got it."

"Henry," Brandon enthuses, faking tears and sniffling, hand over his heart, "oh my _God_ , I think that's maybe the _sweetest_ thing you've _ever_ said to me--"

"Do you _want_ your fries?"

"I want _everyone's_ fries, so--"

"Then shut the fuck up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quotes that are linked are from House of Spirits and The Ice Queen. 
> 
> story moodboards:
> 
> http://boleynqueens.tumblr.com/post/149122473827/anna-thanks-god-at-the-moment-that-shes-not


	3. illuminating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And I think, in a way, Henry took what they said to heart: that we're the only ones who can take care of each other. Because there's no one else like us._

**December 8th, 2016, Thursday**

Anna is waiting in line at the coffee cart set up near Eltham's Botanic Gardens when she sees Henry.

Henry, wearing a blue beanie pulled so far down his forehead that it covers his eyebrows, pauses mid-stride to glance down at his phone.

She waits by the side of the cart as her drink is being made, and is trying to look somewhere that's _not at him_ when she's distracted by a flash of pink on the periphery. As it becomes bigger, the flash of color reveals itself to be a girl: strawberry blonde hair billowing behind her as she runs, the ends of her rose-colored coat snapping in the wind.

By the time she reaches the perimeter of the fountain covered in water-lilies, where Henry still stands, squinting at his phone, she's at a near enough distance that Anna can gauge her age and appearance: late teens to earlier twenties, and quite pretty.

Henry puts his phone back into his messenger bag. 

The girl runs a half circle around the fountain until she is squarely behind him, then claps gloved hands over his eyes.

He laughs and turns around. They embrace, both laughing still, and he spins her around in his arms.

> _Hal!_ (that's all Anna can make out, shouted by the girl)

_Who is…oh._

Anna's startles when the barista calls out her drink order. Her own shouted name feels like an intrusion, a call-out of a different sense. 

* * *

Drink in hand, she dares a glance towards the fountain again, only to see the girl nodding towards… _her?_

Henry shakes his head and the girl tilts hers to the side.

And then the girl is a blur again, except this time she is a blur headed in Anna's direction and she's frozen because…what can she _do_? _Run in the other direction?_ It's too late to pretend she doesn't see her coming this way, so she remains in the spot where she's been standing and sips her coffee with all the nonchalance she can muster.

The attempted aura of nonchalance fails miserably, however: as soon as she sees that Henry is following her (albeit it at a slower pace), she chokes on her coffee.

Anna sputters, grabs a napkin from her pocket to cover her mouth.

The girl skids to a stop in front of her (Henry apace behind her) as Anna wipes foamed milk away from her lips, crumpling the napkin in her hand.

Her eyes are a contradiction, a vibrant _and_  cool grayish blue. A moonstone rests in the middle of her pale, slender neck, the dark blue velvet of its choker necklace stark against the white. Her mouth, lush and full as any ripe summer fruit, is familiar to Anna (though how or why she's not certain), as is the hawkish nose above it.

"You're… _Anna_ , right?" she asks, breathlessly, hand over her heart.

Her hand obscures the words written on her shirt...Anna can make out the picture of a crown, then _Queen...Universe..._

Anna's gaze flickers to Henry's face then back to the girl's, and the recognition clicks: _the same mouth, the same nose._

"Um…yes?"

" _Margaret_ ," Henry says, with a weirdly thin laugh, putting his hand on her shoulder, "come on, I'm sure she's busy--"

Margaret brushes his hand off like one might a gnat, eyes never leaving Anna's:

"She doesn't _look_ busy. _Are_ you busy?"

He mouths 'sorry' from behind her, rolling his eyes, cheeks red as a sunburn.

"Ah…no, not exactly--"

"Great!" Margaret chirps, clapping her hands together, "you can give me a tour, then."

"She doesn't _want_ to give you a tour, and _you've been here before_ \--"

Margaret turns around to face him, leans up on tip-toes to kiss one cheek (Henry's eyes are so tightly shut that the eyelids are wrinkled), patting the other cheek with her hand.

"You said you had class soon. We _can't_ make you late," she teases, spinning back around to Anna with a wink, " _can_ we?"

_'Queen of the Universe'. Ah._

"I suppose not," Anna says, slowly, more amused than alarmed when Margaret links her arm with hers and whispers: _let's go_ before calling out, over her shoulder:

> _Bye, Hal!_

* * *

And so they walk, arms linked. And as they walk, as Margaret chatters and leads the way ( _I'm his younger sister although I assume you've already figured that much out don't worry he won't be that mad or if he's mad he'll only be mad at me, for embarrassing him or whatever but oh well, I knew he wouldn't make himself late to class just to try to stop me so I took the opportunity, and BESIDES he embarrasses himself **plenty** without any help from **me** , so you'd think he'd be used to it by now and…)_, Anna follows her in both stride and spoken words.

Really, she never thought there was _any_ literal version of the term _swept away_ (save that of dirt being pushed with a broom), but she can think of no more apt term to describe what just happened in a manner of mere moments. Nor can she think of a more apt term to describe how she feels: like she was merely a leaf and Margaret was a current of wind that grabbed her along for the ride, a force of nature in her own right.

"Do you usually greet each other like that?" Anna asks.

"That enthusiastically, do you mean?"

Anna nods.

"Well, hmm…sometimes! I've been in Scotland for the past month, visiting my boyfriend, so I missed him…more than usual, I guess," she says with a laugh.

"And… _do_ you need a tour of the campus, or…?"

" _Pssh_ …no. I'm trying to walk the same way I remember…the gazebo being…ah! Here."

* * *

Anna sits at one of the round tables inside the gazebo, reading the notes the TA left on the essay she wrote for her _Lovers and Libertines of the Ancien Régime_ course while she waits for Margaret to come back from her vending machine excursion.

And so, it is with a bottle of strawberry soda in one hand, and water in the other (a water Anna tries to pay her for when she hands it to her, a gesture that Margaret scoffs at: _I basically kidnapped you and dragged you here, buying you a bottle of water is really the least I can do_ ), that Margaret takes a seat and begins, with no preamble:

"I don't want you to get the wrong idea about my brother."

"I…I'm not sure what you mean--"

"I know he comes across as like….a shithead."

Anna raises her eyebrows as she takes a swig of water, pinching a small space in between her thumb and forefinger (as if to say… _a little bit, yeah_ ).

"Right and…he _is_ a shithead, of course. But he's _also_ a…knight. _I_ don't know," she says, waving a hand, "it's like…complex."

"A _knight_?" she asks, skeptically (except her skepticism softens somewhat, as she remembers the elevator…Henry's soothing reassurances, his calmness, noticing she was cold and gifting her his sweater, the way he noticed but didn't mention or ask about her fear, how he took on the task of distracting her from fear, instead).

"Basically. He takes care of us-- well, wait," Margaret asks, leaning forward with clasped hands, "how much do you know about our family?"

"Not very much, I try not to be nosy--"

"I'll try to give you the abridged version."

* * *

It turns out the abridged version is… _long_.

_Long and illuminating._

Margaret tells the story with a strange, emotionless detachment: almost as if none of it happened to her. But then, _maybe you have to do that: maybe detaching from tragedy in the telling of it is the only way to survive it._

There's the Durot siblings themselves: Arthur, the eldest (went M.I.A. whilst in military service overseas when Margaret was sixteen, has been so for so long that the status was changed to 'Missing, Presumed Dead', _we had a funeral and everything_ , she recounts), Henry, Margaret, Marianna Rose, Eleanor (named after their mother), Edmund, and Kate.

And then there is their tragedy:

The week of Henry's eighteenth birthday, the captain of the chartered jet that carried Eleanor Plantagenet and Henry Durot Sr. (along with several of his business executives), descended below the minimum descent altitude. They did so late at night, headed for Colorado.

Due to the above factors, plus the challenges of flying over mountainous terrain, the captain missed the runway. The plane crashed, and the pilot, along with all seventeen passengers onboard, perished.

Henry, at eighteen, declined his acceptance to Oxford University, where he had been planning to go that fall. In place of that path, he accepted the requests of his parents' will, and accepted legal guardianship of his younger siblings.

_My father always said only a Durot can truly understand a Durot, and my mom…said the same thing about Plantagenets. I'm sure it sounds silly, but…my siblings and I are the only people in the world…who are both. And I think, in a way, Henry took what they said to heart: that we're the only ones who can take care of each other. Because there's no one else like us._

* * *

"He had a 'gap year', you could say. Except, instead of gallivanting around Europe, as that term usually implies…he spent his year taking care of us. Trying to set a schedule, get us…stability, I suppose. And he _still_ took care of us after that, he just enrolled in Eltham and managed to juggle everything, anyways. Although maybe it's easier for him now, since he's down to three minors instead of five."

> _Look, I only have like…one free day a month._
> 
> _The other issue is lack of time._

_Oh._

"So you and Marianna…?"

"I'm twenty-one, and she's nineteen and in college," Margaret answers, rolling her eyes, "he pushed for an all-girls' university. She ignored him, of course."

* * *

They're walking back towards the Humanities Building when Margaret says:

"Listen…the thing you have to understand about Henry is that he's basically…a fawn."

"I don't…really get that impression."

"No, I know it's a weird metaphor, but try to stay with me, here. I _have_ to defend him and explain him, because I know _he's_ not going to defend or explain himself, and I _hate_ to see him sad and he's sad."

"O _kay_ …"

"So…where was I, before?"

"You said he was a 'fawn'."

" _Oooh_ , right," Margaret says, snapping her fingers, "yeah, he's shy and awkward and just…yeah, think of him as a fawn in the forest."

"I'll…do my best."

"So he's doing his fawn thing, assessing the situation from afar, camouflaging his true feelings and shit with…leaves, or whatever. Trying to figure out the right moment to come out, from behind the trees and into the clearing. The right time to approach."

"To approach…me?"

"Of _course_ you. _Please_. Anyways, finally he _does_ , he pads his little hooves over to you and is like… _hoping_ you'll open your hand and feed him berries from your palm."

_This is…wild._

" _Sure_ ," Anna says, faking a deep voice as she tries to keep a straight face.

"But _then_ …you shoot him in the leg."

"I mean…I wouldn't go _that_ far--"

" _Metaphorically_ speaking, of course. Now, you have to know that this is a fawn that does not approach _at all, ever_. This was probably, actually, his first time going out to the clearing because _usually_ other girls just run up to _him_ in the woods and try to feed him by hand. And he does _not_ want to get shot in the leg again, so he's going to stay behind the trees. Do you get what I'm saying, Anna?"

She shakes her head.

"I'm saying that _if_ you like him-- and I hope you do, at least a little bit more, now that you know more about him-- you're going to have to find him and feed him by hand. Because there is _no way_ he's going to that clearing again."

* * *

**December 14, 2016, Wednesday**

Save for one awkward holiday party (Brandon's party, thrown after finals and hosted with the help of Mia, a party at which the couple wore matching Santa hats, _like losers_ ) incident…

 _Oh, God_. Anna has been trying to push the memory and embarrassment away ever since it happened.

The abridged version of the incident is that it involved Brandon, drunk, eggnog in hand, tugging on an invisible wire that held a sprig of mistletoe. Brandon, effectively yanking that wire until the sprig dangled over Henry and Anna, standing, as they were, by the table covered in food and making stilted conversation.

If it were a script, a scene from a television show (a way that Anna tries to cope with the memory is by imagining it as such, like it happened not to her but to someone else), it would've read _something_ _like this_ :

> **BRANDON** winks, one hand on the clear wire, the other hand on a red cup filled with eggnog, glugging it as if it contains an elixir to immortality.
> 
> **HENRY** glares at him.
> 
> **HENRY:** Sorry about…that.
> 
> **ANNA:** (shrugs) It's fine.
> 
> **HENRY:** We can ignore him, obviously.
> 
> **ANNA:** I mean…
> 
> **BRANDON** catcalls, **MIA** attempts to pry the cup from his hands. She succeeds in her attempt. The two kiss, **BRANDON'S** hand still on the wire.  
> 
> **ANNA:** He's pretty hard to ignore.
> 
> **HENRY:** True.
> 
> **ANNA:** It _is_ tradition.
> 
> **HENRY:** It _is_. It dates back to Norse mythology.
> 
> **ANNA:** It was considered bad luck to _not_ kiss.
> 
> **HENRY:** Let's keep with it, then.
> 
> **HENRY** leans in, **ANNA** closes her eyes…
> 
> ….for what turns out to be a kiss on…. her….
> 
> _Forehead._
> 
> **ANNA** (V.O.): Death is Imminent! Death is Imminent! Death is--
> 
> **HENRY:** We're supposed to pluck a berry from it, but it's up too high to reach. So.
> 
> **ANNA:** Oh. Too bad. 
> 
> **HENRY:** (grabbing an number of cookies from the table that will, realistically, not fit in his hands) Okay, well…see you later.

_Anyways_. Save for that _Mortifying Incident_ , Anna hasn't seen Henry since last week, when he apologized profusely (despite Anna's reassurances that she didn't mind the ambush, given that it came from someone as warm and charming and witty as it did) for _what I'm sure was my sister trying to break the world record for Most Words Spoken Per Minute_.

Luckily, all such thoughts slip from her mind as she fills her shopping basket with gifts for her parents. The incident doesn't even flutter around the periphery of her mind, not as she waits in line, not as she swipes her credit card or thanks the cashier or takes the department store bag off the counter.

Of course, the Incident comes crashing to the front of her mind when she looks up from the closed trunk of Mia's car (now, sufficiently filled with gifts bought by her brother George, Mia, _and_ Anna) to see that Henry Durot is parked a row over, pushing the lid of his own trunk downwards.

* * *

Anna's not sure _what_ it is, exactly, that propels her forward, makes her brave enough to approach him. Perhaps it is the slow but persistent chant of Margaret's words in Anna's memory ( _you're going to have to feed him by hand_ ). Perhaps it is that the weather (tinged with a damp coolness, gunmetal clouds hanging low and heavy in the sky) in its similarity, sparks the memory of when they last stood together in the rain ( _I really like you_ ).

They exchange pleasantries whilst her hands tremble in the pockets of her coat.

"Is that…your car?" Henry asks, head tilted to the side as he squints at it.

"Ah, no. It's Mia's, she's just letting me borrow it."

"Oh," he says, laughing, "I was gonna say…it doesn't seem very you."

Given that the car in question is a pink Volkswagen, Anna agrees. Her wardrobe is 90% black, after all, so such a vehicle does not match her aesthetic.

"So…how's your break been so--"

"Do you still like me?" she interrupts, arms crossed, and _perhaps there was a less needy way to phrase that_ , but she was worried they would circle small talk endlessly if she didn’t just… _put it out there_. 

"I…I mean," Henry stammers, fingers busy on the collar of his jacket, lashes downcast, "I'm not…does it matter?"

Anna frowns. Cold rain hits flushed skin like a relief, she watches as drops of it streak across the glass of his frames.  

> _'You're going to have to feed him by hand.'_

He is wincing as he falls on to self-conscious mannerisms: hands back in pockets, neck taut and stiff as a faint pink inches its way upwards…

She considers answering his question ( _Yes, it does_ ), _but then what_?

There are, after all, as many ways to answer a question as there are stars in the sky, and _they say actions speak louder than words_.

Anna bridges the space between them, with no small amount of hesitancy (if _actions speak louder than words_ , _that is maybe_ _because often the former is harder than the latter:_ intent is no small feat; but movement is something one can't take back).

Henry hasn't moved his stance in response, not backwards or forwards. His mouth is parted, slightly, chin tilted downwards.

 _If anyone is watching_ , Anna thinks, _this, us, standing close together in a parking lot as the clouds drain_ , _they might think this was a stand-off, and not prelude to a kiss._

_But fawns require a gentle approach, no? You have to go slow, so as not to startle._

Anna lifts her hand, gently traces his bottom lip with the pads of her fingers.

Henry grabs her wrist, eyes wide, almost feverish in their brightness.

Anna curls her hand, gulps, ready to pull away and cut her losses _but_ …

He closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose, slowly, before pulling her hand to his mouth. Kisses it, eyes still shut, before he slides his grip to her hand, twining his fingers in hers. 

"Anna," he murmurs, and laying a gentle kiss against the curve of her cheek, "I…"

 _Oh my God, forget **this**_ , because _there is gently slow and then there is TORTURE and this is becoming the latter_ , and with that thought she turns her head, capturing his mouth with hers (with what she _hopes_ is a pressure firm enough to demonstrate intent and _oh, what do ya know_ : he responds with careful, tiny sips that turn soft and open).

They unclasp their hands. He tugs her closer with an arm tight around the small of her back, slides his hand into her hair. She places her hand against the front of his chest, and he hums, a low, throaty sound, resonant against her lips.

She giggles, nips against the suppleness of his mouth; opens hers easily when he delves his tongue inside parted lips.

Rain finds its way in, crisp and clean as she slides her tongue against his, the taste smooth and faintly sweet. 

It feels like her heart swoops in her chest, once, and then again, even as the ardor is slowed, back to closed, delicate but yielding and just as warm as before.    

Anna pulls away (although not very far), gaze level with his chest.

"You _do_ like me," she whispers, the words no less ardently expressed than his kiss, "I can feel your heartbeat."

"You didn't have to ask," he says, hoarsely, "for the record. It never changed. I'm still…"

Henry bites his lip, trembling against her hand, still steady over his chest. 

"It's okay," Anna says, sweetly, guiding his hand to the pulse point of her neck, where a hummingbird beat flutters against her skin, "You don't need to be embarrassed--see? I like you, too."

* * *

As it so happens, they have places they need to be: Anna, back to her apartment where Mia waits, from which point they will carpool to their parents' house, Henry, to his younger brother's birthday party ( _I promised I'd be on time_ ).

She tucks a piece of paper, ripped from the front of her pocketbook, folded in quarters, into his pocket.

 _Try,_ is what she says, her voice cracking on the word, in lieu of a goodbye, _please just…try, Henry._

* * *

  **December 27, 2016, Tuesday**

Knocking (more a light tapping, really, like a trick-or-treater) sounds against her door.

Anna pauses _Amélie_ before getting up from the couch, blanket draped over her shoulders like a cape.

It's him, of course, that she sees through the peephole of her door. Again, the person she _finally_ manages to stop thinking about materializes like a magic trick, only _after_ she's given up any hope of  a Christmas miracle (and not before, when she clung to that hope as if it were prayer beads).

_Well...at least he's holding a present._

She unlocks the door. 


	4. prejudice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fact that she doesn't jump in while he flounders and rambles is both nerve-wracking and surprising.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note the rating change! altho it's not going to take REAL effect until the next chapter

**December 27, 2016, Tuesday**

Here are all the things Anna knows about Henry Durot:

> 1.) He is standing in her doorway, a gift bag of deep crimson (iridescent in the low lights of the hallway outside) clutched in hand.
> 
> 2.) He is 6'2 (Facebook. Also, she has to look up at him to effectively glare. _Also_ …she had traced his mouth with her hand because there was no way to kiss him whilst standing without basically having to _launch_ herself at him, the sheer convenience of the cheek-to-mouth kiss transference struck Anna as something fated: Henry was already leaning down to kiss her cheek, to murmur against her skin, all she had to do was move her head _slightly_ and _BAM!_ _Kissing for real, the angels play their trumpets, rain pours, etc. etc._ )
> 
> 3.) Honestly there's a lot more she knows about Henry Durot, like that he _is_ a knight but _also kind of a shithead_ , but the _annoying thing about him_ is that he's devastatingly gorgeous when he's coolly rating your appearance as an aside and he's breathtakingly beautiful when he tells you he really, really likes you…. _IN SUMMATION: what the actual fuck it's really not fair that he's hot when he's being a dick and it's not fair that he's cute when he's being earnest and sweet either??_

But _let the list end there_ _for now_ , because her inner diatribe has sunk her into such a daze that Anna sees his lips moving but can't hear the words:

"What?"

"I _said_ ," he repeats, eyes wide, " _first of all_ : do you _usually_ carry your home address around with you?"

Henry holds the piece of paper away from himself and towards her, like he's serving her with a notice.

_Happy Holidays to you, too?_

" _What_ are you talking about--"

"'If found, please return planner to Anna Bennett'…and then your _home address_. _Why_ would you write that down?"

"Because it was on the first page, so I filled it in? What's your problem--"

" _Murderers exist_ , Anna. You can't just," he sputters, pushing the paper back into his coat pocket, "write your address on things you carry around with you."

"Because murderers could find them."

" _Yes_." 

"Righ _t_ ," she says, the end of the word said between clenched teeth, hand braced against the doorframe,  "so…am I to understand that you came over, in person, to scold me about statistically, _highly_ improbable potential scenarios involving serial killers, or--"

"No, I didn't… _mainly_ just this," Henry says, thrusting the gift bag towards her, "was the reason, I…Merry Christmas."

Anna takes it from his hand, gingerly.

He cards his hand through his hair, leaving it at the side of his head. Anna can't quite put her finger on _what_ it is, exactly, that makes her think that something about him in this moment makes her think of him as _childlike_. Is it his eyes lit brightly as candles, or the white sharpness of his teeth biting a reddish, bee-stung lower lip? Is it the heel of his hand (or the tremor in it) cradling his forehead, or the cowlick of shiny brown hair that sticks out from behind a large, elegantly curved ear?

All or one of those images, woven together into the whole of him give that effect. Any or all of those, paired with the openness of his expression, remind her of a kid, despite his tallness and twenty-three years. 

"It's after Christmas."

"I… _know_ ," he says, dropping his hand with a heavy exhale, "I…should I have called first?"

There's a fair amount of hesitancy, of shakiness, in his voice, which Anna doesn't really get because Henry's _not stupid_. Anna slipped him a piece of paper with her address written on it, after they kissed for the first time. It's not hard to connect the dots there: she wanted him to come over.

To surprise her.

She just didn't want him to wait so long that she was… _this_ surprised.

Anna's not stupid, either, and not usually self-doubting, but she's worried over the gesture these past two weeks. It was a bold one, even for her.

_Maybe the magic of the boldness just took a while to percolate, take effect._

"Maybe you should have," Anna says coolly, tilting her head to the side, "would you like to come in?"

* * *

Henry blinks owlishly.

_Maybe you should have…would you like to come in?_

Those two phrases don't mix. One does not belong with the other, and hearing them paired is strange, but _yes,_ he _would_ like to come in. He _really_ did not expect to be invited to do so and so the shock of the invitation seems to have rendered him temporarily mute so _quick, you asshole, before she changes her mind_ :

"Sure."

A half-hearted response; the nature of which is _disingenuous at best_ and _a flagrant lie at worst_ , given that it's wrenched from a dry mouth and given whilst his heart hammers in his chest and his hands sweat in his pockets.

* * *

"I don't open presents in front of people," Anna says, depositing the gift bag near the row of shoes next to her door.

"Oh," Henry says, trying to keep disappointment out of his voice, swiveling around to hide his face on the pretense of hanging his coat on the hook.

_On to Plan B? Wait…did we really only a develop a Plan A? What are we, amateurs?_

"It's one," she continues, "of the charming neuroses I've claimed since adulthood. I don't like opening presents in front of people, I don't like eating in front of people, and I don't like taking pills in front of them-- so, now that I have the autonomy not to, I don't."

_Yes. (Shut up.) There's no segue now. (This is a disaster.)_

A whistling sound starts-- _a tea kettle, maybe_?

"It's fine, I have a weird thing about gifts, too. Birthdays, especially, I really don't like or-- I mean, I don't like my own," he rambles, following her into the kitchen, as she's gestured for him to, "I'm not, you know, begrudging the celebration of anyone else's…birthday."

"Oh," she says, softly, back to him as she flicks the power on the stove top off, leans up to flick the overhead light of it on.

The kitchen is small-- cramped, almost, he stands at the sink and still feels like he's crowding her. Close enough to see shoulder blades move under her skin like water as she pours tea, asks him if he'd like any, or anything else to drink.

It's _ridiculous_ that such ordinary things should strike him dumb: a beauty mark he's never seen before, to the left of the ascending pearls of her spine, the curve of her waist. The swivel of her hips as she moves from the stovetop to the cupboard. The way the black cotton of her shirt creeps up her back as she tiptoes to reach and pull out a mug, the small sliver of bare back that reveals. Her profile, lit by soft lighting, bent as she dips her head and selects a packet of tea from a box. The strand of hair the falls, brushing against the side of an exquisite mouth. The way she huffs it away, impatiently, as she tears the packet open with quick and sure fingers.

But evidently all these ordinary things do, because Anna repeats the inquiry with raised eyebrows and it's only then that Henry realizes he still hasn't responded.

"Sure, tea is-- tea's fine. Can I have some of," he clears his throat, nodding to the Brita filter pitcher of water, on the island, "that, too?"

"Sure. All the glasses are being cleaned," Anna says, nodding to a thrumming dishwasher, a green light lit on the row of buttons on top, "you'll have to use plastic-- is that alright?"

Spotting a stack of clear, plastic cups on the island, he nods and takes one.

* * *

"So…I thought maybe you were wondering…"

Anna shifts her gaze from the screen to Henry, sitting on the other side of the couch.

"Sorry," he says, nodding to the screen, "do you want to pause, or--"

"No."

She's watched _Amélie_  more than a handful of times. It was more something she had put on for its soothing familiarity, something pretty and aesthetically pleasing that she could watch whilst letting her mind wander, then something she's following for plot.  

"I know I haven't reached out…I know you told me to try," Henry says, frowning at the mug of tea he holds, "and that I haven't tried…or it seems like I haven't tried, since we haven't talked since…"

He waves a hand, in a vague gesture, so Anna says _a few weeks ago_ at the exact same moment he blurts _December 14th_ and their eyes meet and _oh_. 

It's the feeling of _oh_ , the sort of soft wonder the word holds in instances like _the boy you like revealing he knows the exact date of your first kiss and just maybe didn't want to play that card yet_ …it's the feeling of _oh_ that warms her now.

She is moving closer to the middle of the couch because of the _oh_ as the narrator of the movie continues his speech ( _Elle c'est Suzanne_ …), and Henry is setting his cup down on the saucer with an unsteady clack but turning to look at her with a steady gaze, levelly and surely.

"Yes…there are a few reasons…I mean, Christmas is important to us. We keep those days just family, because…it's a tradition we still have left, even though our...parents."

Anna nods, pulling her knees up to her chin and getting comfortable in her spot. Listening with intent, studying the dips in his voice and head.

"But I could've at least texted and explained that, I suppose, I just-- I felt like what I had to say should be said in person. And that I shouldn't say anything else until I _had_ said it."

* * *

She doesn't rush him, or say anything herself. Most people would throw him a rope at this point, prompt him in some way, or raise their eyebrows in impatience.

But Anna is the picture of patience and calm, brow smooth. Her eyes (an _impossibly warm_ and _endlessly deep_ _brown_ ) are wide open and soft, receptive. Chin resting against her knees, small pale hands twined together across the crushed red velvet of her sleepwear, flat against her calves.

The fact that she doesn't jump in while he flounders and rambles is both nerve-wracking and surprising. Henry's not used to being pushed (not 'pushed' in the traditional sense of the word, but pushed to keep going by her very stillness and reticence), or uninterrupted.

"To start, I wanted to apologize. For what I said…before I had met you, that you heard? I never did, because I was embarrassed."

"I was _more_ embarrassed," Anna says, quietly, with a smirk that curves her cheek but doesn't quite reach her eyes, "it's okay, really--"

"It's _not_ okay. I…it was a bad moment, for me, and I know we're defined by our bad moments-- you defined me by mine, and it's not like I didn't deserve that--"

"If I were a guy, I'd pick Mia over me, too, honestly--"

"Stop _interrupting_ , Bennett!"

Her mouth drops open, and she puts a hand over her heart in faux shock.

He laughs and, somewhat emboldened by the brevity of her response, leans forward and hooks his hands behind her calves, pulling her closer to him.

"I've been working on this for _weeks_ ," Henry says, voice grave, hands still cupping the back of her legs.

"Oh?"

"Yes. There were drafts."

"Drafts? Do you mean you wrote this down?" she asks, biting her lip.

"Mm-hmm. So the least you can do is let me _try_ ," he says emphatically, grinning when he notices her eyes are lit with recognition at the word, "to explain."

"Fine."

Henry doesn't realize his hands are still curved against the backs of her knees until Anna's own hands curve themselves over his, trapping them.

Not that he wants to move them, _like_ … _at all_.

"Great, so…to explain. I just kept…thinking of excuses, as to why I said that, and while all of them are true, none of them actually… _excuse_ it. I know I can't go back and change what I said, so all I can do is apologize. And that still doesn't make it okay, of course, but--"

"Excuses like what?" she asks, running a thumb over the front of his wrist.

" _Oh_ , ah…that I was drunk and belligerent, that I had been dragged to the party so I was in a bad mood from the get-go. That I was just looking for an excuse to leave without Brandon giving me too much shit for it. That I hadn't even really…seen you, that well, or up-close, enough to make such an assertion. And that obviously I don't, you know…think that _anymore_."

"It's not _so_ obvious."

" _How_?"

"You don't even _look_ at me," Anna says, with a shrug, "all that much, so--"

"Only because when I start to, it's hard to stop."

"Then don't."

* * *

French words glide in the background as Henry stares at her. The planes of his face are lit by the soft glow of the television set, the colors from it glimmer softly on his glasses. Anna gives his hands a gentle squeeze and he returns it as his gaze lingers on her mouth. 

She was fishing for compliments, and he hasn't really given her any. For _some reason_ Anna's rather stubbornly stuck on that despite the fact that the way he's looking at her now is sort of a compliment in its own right.

"The first time I looked at you for too long, Brandon noticed, and gave me shit for it. So I tried to be less obvious--"

"When?" she asks.

" _[La Vie en Rose](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ba_WoSZXvw)_. And then I knew you…had heard what I said at that party, and I was fucking…mortified. And I should've apologized then, but my--"

"Pride?"

"Yes. Pride has stood…in my way a lot. It's kept me…'closed off'," Henry says, mouth twisted in self-deprecation, "it's given me an excuse to not take risks."

"Snap judgments have kept me from getting close, too."

"No, that's not true," he says, shaking his head, "a lot of people know you."

"No," Anna responds, "most people don't, actually…I only let them know what I want them to know."

"Well…don't we all."

* * *

They're about halfway through _Amélie_ , sitting practically shoulder to shoulder, when Anna turns to Henry, arching her neck upwards.

He stiffens, jolts back a bit, expression blank.

"Oh, sorry," Anna stammers, drawing back, face warming, "I thought…"

He catches her mid-retreat, hands swiftly cupping her jaw. Anna stills under his touch, eyes fluttering closed as she sees him lean down, eyes shut as he presses his mouth against hers.

She feels like she's _glowing_ , _honest to God_ , and _oh my God he's so… warm._

His chest radiates heat against her hands, tucked against it. A blossom of warmth from the tip of his nose after an eskimo kiss, a brief interlude in between actual kisses. His mouth reminds her of bed sheets just pulled from the dryer on a winter's day, soft and warm and familiar.

She's struck by how _solid_ he is: the ridge of his shoulders hard in her palms, the line of his jaw sharp as she runs the pads of her fingers over it, the muscles that cord his back as he shifts under her.

And she _wants_.

Anna's newfound desire is one equally strange and thrilling: the more she gets, the more she wants. She knows there's a word for that, can't quite put her finger on what it is… _insatiable, maybe_?

_He's a good kisser_ , truly… her only possible criticism would be that he doesn't really seem to know where to put his hands (and that he touches her too carefully, as if he's worried she'll break), but when she guides them he accepts the guidance easily enough. 

Henry tugs at her bottom lip with his teeth before slipping his tongue in her mouth. One hand remains tangled in her hair, the other splayed against the small of her waist, as she returns the gesture, slow and sweet. He stutters a groan against the kiss and Anna squirms at the heat that pools in between her legs.

_Forget this_ , she thinks, and she slips off his lap and takes a seat on the cushion next to him with _every intent_ of taking off her shirt.

_And yeah, sure_ , she could've done so _while_ on his lap, or waited for _him_ to take _hers_ off, _except that_ :

> a) _this ain't her first rodeo_ , so she knows pulling off one's own shirt, whilst lap-sitting, can easily lead to a face-full-of-elbows, and then the moment is _ruined_
> 
> _and_
> 
> b) Anna waits for no man, and he's such _a knight_ that he might literally never do so without her go-ahead

But it ends up not mattering, because _just_ as her fingers curl under the hem of her shirt he breathlessly stutters, _yeah you're right we should probably take a break_ , scrubbing a hand against his flushed face before getting up.

_Be right back_ , he says, grabbing his cup from the coffee table, _I'm going to get some more water._

_And he!!!_

And he _fucking pauses_ the movie before he leaves the living room (and takes the remote control _with him_ , _like…okay? what? is? that? about?!_ ), _as if we were actually!! Watching!! It!!_

_Well, forget **that**_.   

* * *

Henry returns to the living room, full cup of water in hand, and presses play on the remote before taking a seat on the couch (the opposite of Anna's seat, he heaved a sigh of relief to see the back of her dark head on the far left cushion rather than the middle).

> _["Sans toi, les émotions d'aujourd'hui ne seraient que la peau morte des émotions d'autrefois."](http://boleynqueens.tumblr.com/post/145594805167/filmeditors-comptine-dun-autre-ete-lap) _

"Henry?"

"Mm?"

* * *

Anna winces at the terrible crunching sound, but has to suppress a smile when she discovers its source:

Henry's hand clenched into a fist over the broken plastic Solo cup, water pooling on the wood floor. He drops it as if it's scalded him, and drags his gaze away from her chest (covered only in a piece too thin and wireless [to be called anything but a _bralette_](https://www.cosabella.com/en-us/soft-bras)) to the floor:

"I'll, ah," he stammers, brow furrowed, "clean that up, sorry--"

"Don't," she says, softly, getting up from her seat only to take one on his lap.

Henry kisses her before she has a chance to kiss him first, his palms skidding over the small of her bare back (they feel like dappled sunlight against her skin; a sort of song spilling against her heart).

"Anna," he sighs, as she nuzzles his neck, "Anna, wait, I have to…I need to tell you something."

* * *

Anna has disentangled from him, sits at her own spot on the couch now, a seat away from him.

His hands are templed against his lips, hers are pursed in a thin line. Her eyes are blown out and dark, lashes long and softly curved over newly rosy cheeks and bright skin.

_Stop staring._

She crosses her arms over chest which _, oh my fucking God_ , _does not help in the slightest_.

"Yes?" she asks, an edge to her voice.

_Stop! Staring! Get a fucking grip._

"Right. So…I thought you should know that…"

_Wow._

"' _Wow_ '?" she teases, and either Anna's been secretly psychic _this whole time_ (which… _fuck, would be humiliating for literally hundreds of reasons_ ) _or_ that was a thing he just said aloud (which… _definitely humiliating in its own right_ ), "geez, you'd think you'd never seen boobs before."

"Well," he says, voice strained, "that is, actually, the thing, see, I have…not. In person…"

* * *

  _What?_

"I'm sorry," Henry says, shaking his head, he grabs a throw blanket off the couch and wraps it, swiftly, around her shoulders, "I can't talk, or think, when you're…"

Anna's _honestly_ not sure if she should be offended or complimented by the gesture (she's too stunned to be certain of either, just squints at him, cozy in this _cocoon of a blanket_ now surrounding her).

"Or, I _can_ think, but not thoughts that are really…ah…"

"What were you thinking?"

"That they're _very pretty_ ," he says, palms over his eyes, head bent, "and that--"

"You think I have…pretty breasts?" she clarifies, giggling.

"Yes, and that I'd like to kiss them, but that's-- fucking," he sputters, removing his hands and folding them in his lap, "not the point, um… _fuck_. I haven't…had sex."

Anna cants her head.

"Ever," he continues, wincing, "so…I thought. Full disclosure, on that front would be. Good."

"Oh. Are you…waiting for marriage, or…?"

"No, I just…it's a long story… _ish_. A combination of factors, I guess," he says, picking at his cuticles.

"Like?"

"Well, for _starters_ …I was _determined_ to be a good Catholic boy. I was actually planning on becoming a priest, for a while, so sex wasn't going to be part of that. But that stopped being the plan, eventually, and then I had…offers."

"I'm not surprised."

"No?" he asks, laughing softly, still looking down at this hands.

"Well…looking the way you do, no. I'm not."

"Oh, well, _obviously_ ," Henry scoffs, with a flourish-like ruffle of his hair (Anna laughs, and he points to her), " _hey_! _Don't_ laugh… shy people can be narcissists, too, you know."

"Oh?" she asks, eyes widening, pulling the blanket more tightly around her shoulders.

" _Yes_. It's the root of our shyness. We don't talk to people because we don't think they deserve to know us," he says, shoulders shaking in laughter, "but, anyways…I had girlfriends, but…I just never wanted to, and I didn't want to have sex unless I wanted to."

"Okay. Well," Anna says, with a shrug, "obviously we don't have to do anything."

* * *

"Right," Henry says, deflating, "yeah, ah…I figured as much."

"What?"

"That you wouldn't want to," he elucidates, "since I…virgin status."

"I still want to."

"You _do_?"

 " _Yes_ , I just thought you were telling me because _you_ didn't want to--"

"No, I definitely do--"

"And _I've_ had sex, and usually guys don't like it when you're more experienced than them, so--"

"I honestly could not care less about. That."

"Wow. That's…mature of you."

"That's _'mature of me'_?" he asks, disbelievingly, "I feel like that's pretty much…none of my business."

"I mean, you'd be correct, but--"

"Is the bar really that fucking low? Is that _the standard_? To have prejudice against your partner's experience, if it's...more than yours?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"That's like...fucked?"

* * *

 "Agreed. Here," Anna says, peeling the blanket from off her shoulders, "I mean, if you'd _like_ to do the thing you were thinking about--"

"Yes," he interrupts, pulling his glasses off and folding them, placing them on the coffee table, "I would."

Once he turns around she's already lying on her back, elbows folded and hands up against her shoulders.

He's so tall that by the time he positions himself over her his feet hang off the side of the couch.

"Henry," she whimpers, softly, as he nuzzles her neck, her fingers tight at the hair at the nape of his.

"Mm?"

"Take it," Anna says, wriggling her shoulders, "off, please, I'm…dying."

He finds the button at the front of the laced black bra, pushes it open with a trembling hand.

Unveils each breast, one at a time.

She sighs in relief, eyes closed as he stares, mouth slack, before he remembers her request and hastens to follow it.

Henry mouths the spot her heart beats under, first, before leaving a trail of kisses, slow and wet, against the underside of each breast.

He brushes a hand against the slight curve of her stomach as he presses a cautious, closed-mouthed kiss against the edge of a dusky pink areola, but she shifts, angles herself until her breast is in his mouth.

Anna stutters out a moan and, uncertain of its nature ( _pleasure or pain_ , although given the sudden relaxation of her neck, softly curved to the right, he'd hazard a guess towards the former), he lifts his mouth off and shifts until his face is level with hers.

"Bedroom?" she whispers, eyes dilated and bright.

"Bedroom."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'wishing myself in my sweetheart's arms, whose pretty [breasts] i trust shortly to kiss.' -- letter from henry viii to anne boleyn
> 
> anyways so...they're gonna bang next chap!!! ofc. you know me~


	5. bedroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're /very/ fit."  
> "You've said that before."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note the rating change (to M, in anticipation of this chapter, that i have not updated with in months.....aaaaaaaah!)

It's a blur of blurs ( _the best of blurs_ , really, _one could say_ ), as she's up, arms twined around Henry's neck and legs wrapped his waist.

_And we're walking._

Well, _he's_ walking, his hands splayed against her uncovered back, dry and soft and shifting across it, and she's along for the ride.

"Wait," Anna says, in between kisses, "you--don't--know--where--my-bedroom-- _is_ \--"

"Your apartment's not that big--"

" _Hey_!"

"Hey," he whispers, stilling midstride, "I'm carrying you."

" _Yeah_ , you are."

"Okay, well you didn't need to make it _weird_ \--"

"It's the door after the bathroom," Anna says, "it's open."

* * *

_And we're standing._

Anna remedies this by sitting on the long edge of her mattress, hooking thumbs under the elastic of her pajama pants and sliding them down her legs as Henry stares.

"Catch up," she says, letting them pool down and off and around her feet.

"What?" he asks, shaking his head.

"Take your clothes off," she clarifies, "please?"

"Oh. Right," he says, and he snaps his fingers, which turns into a finger-gun gesture, which he looks at with sheer horror.

"Did you just--"

"No, I did not," Henry says, making quick work of pulling his sweater over his head.

She turns the lamp on, then flicks the overhead light off to cast a soft glow around the room— _mood lighting._

By the time she swans over to take a seat at the chair at her small desk, she notices he _still_ has a sweater on.

A… _different_ …sweater.

_Lord._

“I thought I told you to catch up,” she teases, smirking.

He rolls his eyes, lifts the second up and over his torso.

Anna watches him, hands clasped over one knee of her crossed legs, hair falling over her chest.

“You’re _very_ fit.”

“You’ve said that before,” Henry says, lowly, as he works the button on his jeans.

“It’s still true.”

* * *

Anna feels the friction between their upper bodies, the thin cotton of his undershirt, presses bare breasts against the hard planes of his clothed chest and _aches_ , moans as she kisses him. She aches in between her thighs, too, easily feeling his hardness through the two layers separating them (the fabric of her own flimsy underwea _r is a joke_ , the satin of his boxers not much better) as she sits on his lap.

She pulls away from the kiss to push her hair out of her face, mouth swollen and tender. Henry pulls his last upper layer off, a jerky, rushed movement, pulls her back to kiss her on the mouth, _again_. 

He nuzzles her neck and she giggles .

"What," he asks, mouth near her ear, fingers threaded through her hair, "is _so_ funny?"

"Just remembering that you had _two_ sweaters on," Anna says.

"Be _nice_ ," Henry scoffs, although he's laughing, too, "it's cold outside."

"I plan to be nice. Lie down and I'll prove it."

* * *

And it's their tangled bare limbs, Henry lying down on his back as they kiss, her knees resting on either side of his hips which is _somehow more_ … _more, just more_. _More_ in a way that is his heart banging against his ribcage like a heavy drum, _more_ in a way that increases as she rolls off him to the side, blowing a trail of warm air from pursed lips down the length of his chest and stomach before she presses her mouth against the spot above his right hip bone, _oh my God_.

Henry cups a hand over the top of her head, stroking her hair, and it slips against his gentle hold of it as she shifts farther down his body.

"I want you to feel good," Anna says.

 _More_ is her tongue curling against his skin, just above the waistband of his underwear.

"I do, that, that _does_ …I'm, God, you don't have to, you know, I--"

"I _want_ to," she says, slipping two fingers under the elastic, teasing, just barely along the bottom of the band, "that is, as long as _you_ want me to."

"Yes," Henry says, his voice coming out a hoarse rasp; he tries to clear his throat to save face, "please."

She pulls the elastic up and over the tent on his boxers, uncovering his cock and holding it with a firm grip in one hand as she circles the tip with her tongue.

His gasp is short and reactive, accompanied as it is with the feeling of waking up from a falling dream (the sort of physical startling that makes your breath catch), a feeling that intensifies when she takes him in her mouth.

Heat radiates in streams from his neck downward, he clutches the quilt in one hand, clenches his fist around it tighter as she continues, pausing only to look up at him through her lashes.  

Blood pounds in his ears, as he watches her watching him watching her.

Her cheeks are flushed the same red as her lips, dewy with perspiration.

She slides her lips off and begins to work her hand over him again; it feels even better than it did the first time she did so, his skin newly wet from when her mouth was on him.

* * *

"Anna, I'm-- I'm going to--"

"Try not to."

"Try _not_ to?" he asks incredulously, voice coming out as a croak.

“Mm-hmm,” she purrs, taking one of his hands and replacing it with where she previously had hold, then, more matter-of-fact as she turns her back to him, “just for a bit while I…I’m on the pill, we don’t need—unless you want a condom, I have some in my bathroom, but I don’t have any STI’s and you’ve never—“

“No, that’s—I don’t need one.”

His focus is singular, it blocks out most else; he tries to pay attention to her face rather than her body for the moment (although...that doesn't help much, _she's still hot as hell_ , skin flushed, worrying a rosy lower lip under her teeth, smiling around it) listens and nods when she asks if she can go on top: ( _can you hold your thumb and forefinger in a circle at the base there, if it’s still it’ll make it easier for me to ease onto you….okay, you can take them off now so that I can—aah..._ )

* * *

It’s funny— _well, maybe ‘funny’ isn’t **exactly** the right word_ —how someone that’s otherwise fairly reticent and withdrawn, who plays it so close to the chest, can be so… _responsive_ , and _loudly_ so (but she likes that, she finds, it makes her heart stutter as she thinks _that’s because of **me**_ ) once _their_ chest is pressed against _yours_ (your hair tickling your ribcage, acting as a gossamer curtain between the two of you), how loud they can prove to be once they’re in between your legs…

He had been slow to touch her at first, quiet until she had given him permission not to be: Anna had told him to _breathe, relax—are you okay?_

 _I’m trying—not to_ , he said, sounding pained but smiling a bit anyway, one hand carefully cradling her hip, cobalt gaze somewhat off-focus, more at the space to the right of the curve of her waist than the skin itself, _I don’t want to be faster than you_ —

_Oh, no, Henry, that’s not what I meant—I just meant until we started—I don’t care if you’re quick! It’s your first time. I just want you to feel good. You can touch me more, if you want, I’ll tell if you it’s not okay, I’m not shy about—_

And then her words sweetly interrupted, a very light, almost feathery brush of his lips on hers (it reminds Anna of their first kiss, actually, it’s _that_ tentative and gentle, an innocence to it that almost feels innocuous given their lack of clothes) and his hands on the lowest spot of her back, splayed wide.

It turns to a slow and open kiss, then, as her hips rut against his: she both feels (the breath of it, almost an aching thing, a soft, new warmth in her open mouth) and hears his moan.

“Can we switch?” he asks, _very_ sweetly, fingers wrapped around the swell of her breast “I’m—I think I’m close, as much as I _like_ looking up at you, I’d like to…see you on your back, too.”

* * *

She helps him change positions, easily enough, assists him in entrance (her sex is much lower than his first try, he stammers an apology and she giggles and shows him, eases him in again) but as soon as his eyes light on hers, then survey her body unabashedly, as soon as he pushes into her, slowly but with that _delicious_ moaning (there is something so… _raw_ about it, uninhibited but not pitchy or fake, it sounds like nothing affected, nothing pornographic) right into the satiny curve of her neck, she knows it’ll be soon.

But she can see how tightly wound he is, the muscles straining in his neck, the glistening sheen of sweat over his face (even his eyelids glimmer with it, slightly), and feel it, too, under her palms on the musculature of his back…and so she follows an inkling, arches her back and whispers:

“I’ve imagined this before, with you, I’ve dreamt about this and woken up wanting.”

“Oh my _God_ , _Anna_ —”

She returns his previous favor, cups the back of his neck and pulls him down to her mouth; gives a kiss in the form of an interruption, except hers is her head tilted back and her tongue slid against his, a kiss just as slow but twice as dirty.

Anna keeps kissing him and Henry keeps kissing her, even as he shakes and comes; as the waves of his orgasm descend she lessens the pressure of her mouth: softer and easier and slower until it is done, until both of them are back to land.

And they are, and they settle back into the mattress until they both finally feel the chill, the draft from her window, which is always a little bit stuck open: they shiver, laugh simultaneously, and get under the quilt together, yanking it up and over their shoulders.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there will be more and i kno this was a relatively short chapter-- but it'd been so long since an update i really wanted to give SOMETHING, so...hope y'all liked <3


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